P'RT'Mr'T?'rr»XT      tvt     t  "VM 


PRINCETON,    N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the  Hammill   Missionary  Fund. 


BV  2063  .M372  1891 
March,  Daniel,  1816-1909. 
Morning  light  in  many  lands 


MORNING    LIGHT 


IN   MANY   LANDS 


DANIEL   MARCH 


BOSTON  AND  CHICAGO 
C0ngrEgatt0naI  SttnBagsSrfjool  anli  |3ubltsf)tng  Soctttg 


Copyright,  1891,  by 
Congregational  Sunday-School  and  Publishing  Society. 


PREFACE. 


After  the  long  night  of  ages,  the  morning  light  is  breaking  on  all 
the  lands  of  the  old  East.  It  is  a  new  creation  of  hope  in  the  hearts 
and  joy  in  the  homes  of  millions.  I  have  only  tried  to  point  out 
some  of  the  high  places,  where  the  light  is  beginning  to  shine,  and 
some  of  the  low  valleys,  where  the  clouds  look  darker,  just  because 
the  morning  is  on  the  hills.  The  book  would  have  been  much  larger, 
and  I  hope  much  better,  if  a  messenger  of  the  prince  of  darkness  had 
not  come  in  the  night  and  stolen  away  all  that  I  had  written,  with 
painstaking  care,  of  mission  work  seen  on  the  journey  from  Prague  in 
Bohemia  to  Shanghai  in  China.  The  plunder  did  naught  to  enrich  the 
thief  and  it  left  me  poor  indeed.  If  he  had  been  half  as  ready  to 
bring  back  the  spoil  as  I  was  to  forgive  the  theft  and  reward  the 
return,  my  readers  would  have  had  a  better  book  and  I  should  have 
been  spared  the  one  great  loss  in  a  long  journey.  D.  M. 


CONTENTS. 


FACE 

CHAPTER   I. 
A  Short  Chapter  on  a  Long  Journey 7 

CHAPTER   n. 
Modes  of  Travel  in  Many  Lands 17 

CHAPTER   HL 
Extremes  and  Contrasts 29 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Southern  Cross 42 

CHAPTER  V. 
Holy  Mountains  and  Sacred  Rivers  in  the  EIast 49 

CHAPTER  VL 
How  to  See  Mission  Work  in  the  East 59 

CHAPTER  VH. 
Grand  Experiments  and  Great  Success 70 

CHAPTER  VHL 
The  Motory  Power  of  Mission  Work 81 

CHAPTER   IX. 
What  Can  We  Teach  China? 95 

CHAPTER  X. 
John  Chinaman ,,...•.    106 

CHAPTER   XI. 
What  Can  China  Teach  Us? 120 

CHAPTER  XII. 
The  Common  People  of  the  East 145 

CHAPTER  Xin. 
Faith  and  Hope  in  Heathen  Lands 163 

5 


5  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   XIV.  PAGE 

Having  Eyes  and  Seeing  Not 182 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Light  in  the  East 196 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Views  from  Car  Windows  in  India 236 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
The  Power  of  the  Gospel 264 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Work  Already  Done 281 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Forward 295 

CHAPTER  XX. 
One  Law  of  Duty  for  All 318 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
The  Consecration  of  Wealth 33° 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
The  Higher  Education 339 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
The  Christian  Press 349 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
The  Last  Crusade 3^1 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Recruiting  Offices 3^9 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Cooperation  in  the  Field 3^5 

CHAPTER  XXVIL 
Recruiting  on  the  Field 397 

CHAPTER  XXVIIL 
Faith  in  Success 409 


Morning  Light  in  Many  Lands. 


I. 

A  SHORT  CHAPTER  ON  A  LONG  JOURNEY. 

TTOW  far  is  it  round  the  big  ball  of  our  earth?  If  you 
take  a  line  and  stretch  it  eastward  from  Boston  and 
keep  going  straight  forward  till  you  come  back  to  Boston 
again  from  the  west,  how  long  would  the  line  be  ?  Every 
schoolboy  can  answer  from  the  geography.  But  suppose 
you  put  the  answer  in  terms  of  travel,  what  would  it  be  ? 
Just  about  as  far  as  a  camel  would  go,  if  he  should  move  at 
the  common  pace  of  the  desert  and  keep  going  straight  on, 
six  days  in  the  week,  without  stopping  for  four  years.  Just 
about  as  far  as  you  would  have  to  travel  in  going  from 
Boston  to  Chicago  twenty-five  times.  My  neighbor,  the 
captain,  tells  me  that  he  has  been  round  the  world  seven 
times,  and  his  voyages,  the  way  he  went,  would  just  about 
reach  from  the  earth  to  the  moon.  My  friend,  the  conductor, 
the  first  man  to  shake  hands  with  me  when  I  came  back,  has 
run  on  the  railway  far  enough  to  encompass  the  earth  thirty- 
two  times.  And  the  captain  and  the  conductor  are  still 
good  sound  men,  much  younger  than  I  am,  and  likely  to 
have  many  more  miles  of   travel  before  they  start    on    the 

7 


8  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

last  journey.  The  captain  never  lost  a  spar,  and  the  con- 
ductor never  smashed  a  train.  And  that  looks  as  if  travel- 
ing on  long  journeys  had  come  to  be  quite  safe  and  easy 
in  our  day. 

But  is  the  journey  round  the  world  pleasant  and  easy  all 
the  way  }  That  depends  upon  who  goes  and  what  he  goes 
for.  Some  go,  like  the  sea  birds  that  follow  the  ship  all  the 
way  across  the  ocean,  never  seeming  to  rest  and  never 
getting  tired.  Some  go,  as  the  camel  goes  in  the  desert, 
groaning  and  complaining  when  the  Arabs  place  the  burden 
on  his  back  in  the  morning,  and  complaining  and  groaning 
just  as  much  when  they  take  it  off  at  night.  Some  travelers 
come  home  from  the  long  journey  and  say  they  found  the 
best  of  everything  all  the  way,  the  best  ship  on  the  sea,  and 
the  best  train,  carriage,  donkey,  and  bandy  on  the  land,  the 
best  fare  at  hotels,  the  best  company  on  the  road  and  the 
best  sights  to  see ;  they  never  lost  the  way,  never  had  an 
accident  and  never  saw  one  ;  if  they  were  ever  cheated  or 
misled  or  lied  to,  they  did  not  know  it,  and  so  they  had 
nothing  to  complain  of.  Other  travelers  come  back  and  say 
they  started  at  the  wrong  time,  took  the  worst  route,  and 
experienced  all  manner  of  hindrance,  accident,  and  delay, 
from  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  journey.  They  were  sick 
on  the  sea  and  tired  on  the  land,  and  anxious  and  troubled 
everywhere.  When  they  tell  the  story  of  their  travels,  it  is 
a  tale  of  accident  and  annoyance  and  discomfort,  from  heat 
and  cold,  rain  and  drought,  vermin  and  filth,  from  beginning 
to  end.  Such  people  will  do  best  to  stay  at  home,  sit  by 
their  own  fireside,  read  books  of  travel,  long  to  go,  but 
never  start.     The  other  class  of  travelers  can  go  anywhere, 


A    SHORT   CHAPTER    ON  A   LONG   JOURNEY.  9 

at  any  time  of  the  year,  by  whatever  route  they  please,  and 
they  will  be  sure  to  find  friends  and  sunshine  all  the  way, 
and  when  they  come  home  and  tell  their  story  they  make 
it  so  bright  and  cheery  that  everybody  who  hears  wants  to 
go  too. 

How  long  does  it  take  and  how  much  does  it  cost  to  go 
round  the  world?  You  can  make  the  journey  in  three 
months,  and  you  can  spend  thirty  and  wish  you  had  more. 
If  you  cannot  spend  a  year,  you  had  better  not  go  at  all.  It 
is  not  worth  the  cost  in  time  and  money  and  labor  to  go  and 
come  back  and  read  books  of  travel  to  find  out  what  you 
ought  to  have  seen  but  did  not.  That  is  about  all  that  some 
do.  They  take  the  best  ships  on  the  sea  and  the  fastest 
trains  on  the  land.  They  run  across  the  country  in  India 
from  Bombay  to  Calcutta,  they  stop  a  day  or  two  at  Singa- 
pore and  Hongkong  and  Yokohama.  They  look  up  to  the 
distant  mountains  and  across  the  broad  plains  and  down 
upon  the  muddy  water  of  the  sacred  rivers.  They  visit  a 
few  temples  and  tombs  and  monuments.  They  talk  with 
steamboat  officers  and  hotel  keepers  and  guides.  They 
bring  home  photographs  and  curios  and  cunning  work  in 
brass  and  ivory  and  stone.  They  take  a  ride  in  the  jinrik- 
sha  through  the  streets  of  Tokyo  and  the  English  settlement 
in  Shanghai.  They  try  a  sedan  chair  for  an  hour  in  Canton, 
and  an  ox-bandy  for  a  night  in  India.  They  gather  up  the 
commonplace  talk  which  is  retailed  to  all  travelers  without 
money  and  without  price  in  hotels  and  on  shipboard  ;  they 
while  away  a  weary  hour  in  reading  guidebooks  when  wait- 
ing for  trains  or  steamers.  And  then  they  come  home 
and  say  they  have  seen  the  "gorgeous   East"  with  all  its 


lO  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

splendors  and  all  its  misery,  all  its  legends  of  mystical  lore, 
and  all  its  traditions  of  ancient  glory. 

And  yet  they  have  seen  very  little  of  the  actual  condition 
and  character  of  the  swarming  millions  of  human  beings 
that  make  up  the  living  population  of  town  and  country  in 
the  great  East  of  to-day.  If  one  cannot  make  more  than 
that  out  of  the  journey  round  the  world,  he  had  better  stay 
at  home  and  read  books  written  by  men  who  have  spent  a 
lifetime  of  laborious  study  and  observation  in  the  endeavor 
to  find  out  the  mysteries  of  the  eastern  mind  and  the  mar- 
vels of  its  ancient  story.  An  industrious  and  scholarly  man 
told  me  that  he  had  lived  in  China  thirty-four  years  and  he 
had  been  studying  the  Chinese  mind  all  the  time,  and  still 
to  him  it  was  a  great  deep  which  he  could  not  understand. 
That  being  true,  a  traveler  who  does  not  know  a  word  of  the 
language,  and  who  steps  ashore  for  a  few  hours  at  Shanghai 
and  Hongkong,  is  not  likely  to  come  home  with  full  right 
to  say  that  he  has  seen  the  Central  Flowery  Kingdom  with 
his  own  eyes  and  that  he  knows  all  about  it.  If  he  cannot 
afford  a  year  in  making  the  circuit  of  the  globe,  he  will 
be  wiser  to  stay  at  home  and  read  the  books  of  men  who 
have  been  studying  the  eastern  mind  for  a  whole  generation 
and  are  still  very  far  from  boasting  of  their  attainments  in 
eastern  lore. 

As  to  the  cost  of  the  journey,  seven  hundred  dollars  will 
pay  the  first-class  fare  of  one  who  goes  by  the  shortest  and 
quickest  route,  and  only  wishes  to  .say  he  has  been  round 
and  come  back  safe.  The  fare  will  include  board  on  the  sea, 
and  three  dollars  a  day  will  be  enough  for  board  on  land. 
But  to  make  the  journey  with  profit  and  satisfaction,  fifteen 


A    SHOUT   CHAPTER    ON  A    LONG   JOURNEY.  \\ 

thousand  miles  must  be  added  to  the  twenty-five  thousand 
miles  round  in  a  direct  course.  If  one  gets  back  to  the 
place  of  starting  with  less  than  forty  thousand  miles  and 
sixteen  months  of  time  in  travel  behind  him,  he  must  have 
missed  much  that  he  went  to  see,  and  he  will  have  many 
regrets  that  he  did  not  go  farther  and  stay  longer. 

The  facilities  for  travel  in  our  time  have  taken  away  a 
large  part  of  the  terrors  of  the  deep  and  the  hardships  of 
the  land.  We  have  made  roads  for  everything  on  the  earth 
and  the  water,  and  we  are  only  waiting  for  inventors  to  finish 
work  already  begun  and  we  shall  trample  the  winds  and 
traverse  the  fields  of  air.  Mighty  kings  in  ancient  time  could 
not  fly  as  fast  or  as  far  on  fiery  steeds  as  the  peasant  and  the 
plowman  travel  in  our  day.  The  chariots  of  heroes  and 
conquerors,  whose  names  are  great  in  eastern  story,  were 
ugly  carts  compared  with  the  flying  palace  of  our  time. 
The  highways,  which  subject  nations  made  for  kings  when 
Solomon  reigned  in  all  his  glory  and  Xerxes  scourged  the 
sea  for  breaking  his  ships,  were  only  mule  tracks  among  the 
mountains  or  cow  paths  on  the  prairie  compared  with  roads 
which  now  climb  the  steep  with  easy  grade  and  cross  conti- 
nents with  unbroken  chain.  We  have  tunneled  the  moun- 
tains and  bridged  the  rivers  and  filled  up  the  valleys  and 
made  the  rough  places  smooth  with  arches  of  stone  and  rails 
of  steel.  It  needs  no  prophet's  vision  to  say  that  there  is 
sure  to  be  a  road  sooner  or  later  wherever  multitudes  wish 
to  go,  and  means  of  transportation  will  be  supplied  for  all 
the  goods  they  wish  to  carry.  The  old  and  the  young,  the 
sick  and  the  well,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  all  travel.  Every 
nation    has    its    representatives    in    every   other,   and    many 


12  MORNING   LIGHT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

private  families  have  members  on  all  the  continents  of 
the  earth. 

I  have  traveled  as  far  as  I  could  possibly  get  from  home, 
and  yet  I  have  heard  my  name  called  as  a  familiar  sound  on 
the  other  side  of  the  globe  by  men  who  had  been  my  school- 
fellows in  boyhood,  and  I  have  met  my  next-door  neighbor  in 
the  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun.  I  have  heard  men  who  never 
saw  a  snowflake  express  an  eager  desire  to  visit  our  colder 
clime,  and  I  have  heard  the  praise  of  American  arts  and 
industry  from  the  lips  of  men  who  could  not  pronounce  the 
name  of  our  country  correctly.  We  give  to  every  land,  and 
we  get  back  more  than  we  give.  Our  houses  are  garnished 
with  the  manufactures  of  all  nations,  our  tables  are  loaded 
with  the  luxuries  of  all  climes,  because  we  have  made  high- 
ways over  all  seas  and  continents  of  the  earth,  and  whatever 
is  made  or  grown  in  one  land  is  sure  to  be  brought  within 
the  reach  of  every  other.  The  products  of  the  shop  and  the 
field  are  as  sure  to  be  carried  wherever  they  are  wanted  as 
the  springs  among  the  hills  are  sure  to  find  their  way  to 
the  sea. 

At  such  a  time  it  seems  a  small  matter  for  one  to  say  that 
he  has  passed  around  the  whole  compass  of  the  globe  and 
returned  safe  to  his  home  without  accident  or  delay.  He 
has  only  dropped  into  the  currents  of  travel  that  are  always 
flowing,  and  he  has  floated  on  to  the  end  of  his  journey 
without  touching  a  hand  to  the  oar  to  pull  against  the 
stream,  without  once  holding  the  reins  of  the  fiery  steed 
that  has  drawn  his  palace  car  swift  as  the  wind.  And  yet  to 
one  who  has  completed  the  full  round  of  circumterranean 
travel,  the  journey  is  something  more  than  a  holiday  excur- 


A   SHORT  CHAPTER    ON  A    LONG  JOURNEY.  1 3 

sion.  In  the  review  of  the  route  he  must  needs  remember 
many  rude  jolts  on  the  land  and  worse  tossing  on  the  sea, 
many  hard  lodgings  which  no  enthusiasm  for  travel  could 
call  easy,  and  many  irritations  which  the  sweetest  temper 
would  scarcely  meet  with  a  smile.  The  winds  do  not  always 
blow  softly  from  sunny  isles,  nor  are  the  senses  oft  regaled 
with 

"  Sabasan  odors  from  spicy  climes" 

in  the  streets  and  lanes  of  eastern  towns.  He  must  see 
many  sights  which  are  not  fit  for  the  sun  to  look  upon, 
and  he  must  hear  tales  of  misery  and  degradation  which  a 
becoming  regard  for  the  decencies  of  speech  will  forbid  him 
to  repeat.  Nevertheless,  when  he  gets  well  home,  he  finds 
the  hardships  of  the  way  the  pleasantest  things  to  talk 
about  next  to  the  hospitalities  of  friends  that  made  him 
add  a  hundred  homes  to  the  one  which  he  had  left  behind. 
He  thinks  it  worth  the  while  to  make  so  long  a  journey 
just  to  learn  by  his  own  experience  that  the  bands  of 
human  kindness  and  sympathy  already  encompass  the  globe, 
and  that  the  time  is  coming  when  the  names  stranger  and 
foreigner  will  give  place  to  friend  and  brother. 

Which  is  the  better  way  to  go  at  the  start,  east  or  west } 
I  should  say  decisively  east.  Then  you  seem  to  be  tracing 
the  stream  of  emigration  and  empire  up  to  the  source  from 
which  it  has  been  flowing  down  to  us  from  the  far  distant 
ages.  First  after  Young  America  comes  Old  Europe,  and 
then  by  slow  and  imperceptible  changes  the  lands  of  the 
morning  and  the  most  ancient  East.  Every  day  brings  you 
nearer  to  the  sunrising,  and  as  you  press  on  you  half  fancy 


14  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  lANDS. 

that  by-and-by  you  will  find  the  king  of  day  girding  himself 
in  his  secret  chambers  and  coming  forth  with  all  his  glories 
for  his  journey  through  the  heavens.  The  light  grows  more 
intense  and  the  sunbeams  smite  with  a  severer  stroke  as  you 
round  out  from  the  Red  Sea  into  the  Indian  Ocean,  and  the 
land  breeze  which  comes  out  to  meet  you  from  Ceylon  seems 
as  if  it  were  laden  with  the  suffocating  fumes  of  ancient 
altars,  or  the  deadening  exhalations  of  forests  and  rice  fields 
that  never  felt  the  healing  touch  of  frost.  You  traverse  the 
whole  great  land  of  India  from  its  southern  cape  to  the  wall 
of  the  snow  mountains  made  without  hands  on  the  north, 
and  you  see  everywhere  gross  darkness  resting  on  the 
people,  and  yet  also  everywhere  light  breaking  through  the 
cloud  and  giving  promise  of  approaching  day.  You  pass  on 
to  Burmah  and  Siam,  and  there  sits  Buddha  enthroned  in 
everlasting  sleep  and  his  worshipers  round  him  seeming  as 
if  their  god  had  poured  upon  them  the  spirit  of  deep  slum- 
ber and  had  closed  their  eyes  that  they  might  not  see  the 
light  of  the  new  day  dawning  on  all  the  great  eastern  world. 
Then  comes  the  climax  of  all  that  is  ancient  and  unchange- 
able, all  that  is  mysterious  and  incomprehensible  to  western 
minds,  in  China.  You  have  got  as  near  to  the  origin  of 
things  as  you  can  go.  Everything  is  old.  Ask  how  long  a 
temple  or  a  wall  or  a  bridge  has  been  built,  and  you  will  be 
answered,  as  a  priest  answered  me  at  Ningpo,  "Tens  of 
thousands  of  ages."  You  pass  on  to  Japan  and  you  breathe 
more  freely  when  you  find  forty  millions  of  people  waking 
from  the  sleep  of  ages  and  breaking  forth  into  a  wild  and 
wondering  life  which  mingles  the  dreams  and  delusions  of 
the  past  with  the  practical  science  and  the  rational  faith  of 


A    SHORT   CHAPTER   ON  A   LONG  JOURNEY.  1 5 

Christian  nations.  A  month  or  two  of  time  in  the  Island 
Empire  of  the  Mikado  breaks  the  suddenness  of  the  transi- 
tion from  the  deadening  lethargy  of  the  old  East  to  the 
intense  and  fervid  life  of  the  New  World.  In  the  long  and 
quiet  passage  of  the  Pacific  you  have  time  to  think  over 
all  you  have  seen  and  balance  the  account  of  thought  and 
theory  about  the  Old  and  the  New,  the  East  and  the  West. 
You  find  that  a  year's  travel  towards  the  sunrising  has  put 
you  ahead  one  day  in  the  reckoning  of  time,  and  you  are 
obliged  to  drop  the  extra  day  into  the  deep  in  order  to  make 
your  Sundays  agree  with  those  which  you  find  the  people 
keeping  when  you  get  home.  The  first  Wednesday  out  from 
Yokohama  on  the  homeward  voyage,  you  go  back  and  count 
the  day  over  again  so  as  to  be  ready  to  keep  step  in  the  march 
of  time  with  the  fast  and  furious  life  about  you,  when  first 
you  set  foot  on  the  shore  of  the  New  World  of  the  West. 

Forty  thousand  miles  are  about  equal  to  one  fourth  the 
length  of  all  the  railways  in  the  United  States  if  they  were 
stretched  in  one  continuous  line.  It  is  surely  something  to 
be  thankful  for  that  one  has  passed  over  all  that  distance  at 
a  speed  varying  from  sixty  miles  an  hour  to  the  slowest 
walk,  and  has  trusted  to  all  kinds  of  conveyances  and  to  all 
sorts  of  people  and  yet  has  never  experienced  or  witnessed 
an  accident  or  disaster  of  any  kind  on  the  way.  It  seemed 
to  me  when  I  reached  home  that  the  hard  trot  of  the  Syrian 
horse  and  the  measured  swing  of  the  Arabian  camel  and  the 
heavy  jolt  of  the  Chinese  cart  and  the  pleasant  whir  of  the 
Japanese  riksha  and  the  restless  tossing  of  the  sea  were  all 
shaken  out  of  me,  and  I  stood  on  my  feet  as  firmly  as  if  I 
had  not  walked  on  the  other  side  of  the    slobe  with    men 


1 6  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

whose  midnight  marks  our  noon.  My  journey  led  me  hun- 
dreds of  miles  through  great  and  strange  cities,  where  the 
crowded  streets  were  as  intricate  as  the  meshes  of  the 
spider's  web ;  and  then  again  I  passed  through  solitudes  and 
waste  places  of  the  earth  where  there  was  no  inhabitant  and 
no  sign  that  human  foot  had  been  there  before.  I  was 
dependent  upon  others  for  information,  and  they  spoke  fifty 
different  languages,  all  equally  unknown  to  me.  But  I 
never  missed  a  desired  connection,  never  failed  to  get  con- 
veyance when  I  wanted  it,  I  never  was  misled,  I  never  lost 
the  way  when  there  was  any  way  to  lose  ;  if  I  ever  were 
cheated  or  lied  to,  I  did  not  know  it  and  so  it  did  not  hurt 
me  ;  the  houses  of  strangers  were  opened  to  me  with  hospi- 
tality, the  courtesies  of  princes  and  the  service  of  coolies 
were  offered  with  equal  kindness,  the  public  conveyance  and 
the  private  carriage  were  always  at  command,  all  questions 
of  wonder  and  curiosity  were  answered  with  equal  frankness 
in  the  government  office,  the  heathen  temple,  and  the  mission 
school.  I  came  home  with  the  feeling  that  the  promised 
time  of  universal  brotherhood  among  men  of  all  nations  is 
nearer  at  hand  than  we  are  apt  to  think.  And  I  thought 
too  that  every  traveler  who  goes  round  the  globe  with  a 
considerate  mind  and  kindly  heart  must  do  something  to 
strengthen  the  bonds  which  are  bringing  all  nations  into  one 
united  family. 


11. 


MODES  OF  TRAVEL  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

TN  making  the  circuit  of  the  globe  the  traveler  must 
-'-  needs  trust  to  a  great  variety  of  conveyances  and  a 
great  number  of  unknown  guides,  and  he  will  be  surprised 
to  find  with  what  ease  and  safety  they  all  bear  him  on  his 
way.  For  days  and  nights  and  weeks  in  long  succession  his 
home  must  be  upon  the  great  iron  steamer,  whose  vast  hulk 
is  bound  and  barred  with  ribs  and  rods  of  steel,  whose 
mighty  engines  toil  without  rest  under  the  fiery  torture  of 
the  furnace  heated  sevenfold,  whose  keel  plows  the  waves 
ten  times  deeper  than  the  subsoil  plow  the  prairie,  and  yet 
leaves  no  furrow  behind.  No  returned  voyager  can  tell  the 
next  what  experience  awaits  him  on  the  sea  or  on  the  land. 
One  takes  one  route,  another  another  ;  one  finds  fair  weather 
all  the  way  round,  and  another  is  burnt  by  the  sun  and 
beaten  by  the  tempest  and  tossed  by  the  typhoon.  I  can 
tell  m.y  experience  ;  let  the  next  man  tell  his.  If  the  two 
are  unlike,  let  none  say  that  both  cannot  be  true.  I  passed 
through  the  whole  length  of  the  British  Channel  and  over 
the  German  Ocean,  which  has  been  the  terror  of  mariners 
for  ages,  and  both  were  as  calm  as  a  summer  lake  among  the 
hills  when  the  winds  are  hushed  in  noontide  repose.  I  was 
many  days  and  nights  on  the  Mediterranean,  where  ships 
have  been  caught  by  mighty  tempests  ever  since  the  voyage 


1 8  MOUXLVG  LIGHT  LV  MAA'Y  LAXDS. 

of  Jonah  and  ^-Eneas,  but  the  winds  were  asleep  in  their 
secret  chambers  and  I  slept  soundly  on  the  sea.  I  passed 
through  the  Red  Sea,  where  men  die  of  heat  every  year,  and 
my  cabin  was  so  cool  that  I  sometimes  closed  my  window  to 
shut  out  the  west  wind  that  came  in  from  Nubia  and  Abys- 
sinia fresh  as  the  morning  breeze  in  our  October  days.  I 
passed  over  the  Bay  of  Bengal  and  the  China  Seas,  where 
many  a  gallant  ship  has  gone  down  under  the  stroke  of  the 
terrible  typhoon,  and  where  our  captain  said  the  best  and 
bravest  of  seamen  had  found  a  burial  place  in  the  bottom  of 
the  deep.  But  the  typhoon  was  busy  at  its  wild  play  out  on 
the  Pacific  Ocean  and  it  let  us  pass  in  peace.  Once  we 
anchored  two  nights  and  a  day  under  the  shelter  of  hills 
above  Hongkong,  waiting  for  the  cruel  scourge  of  the  East- 
ern Seas  to  blow  its  breath  away  before  we  ventured  out 
upon  our  northward  voyage.  But  the  implacable  Nemesis 
of  the  deep  howled  about  us  all  the  time  with  a  voice  which 
seemed  to  say,  "  You  laugh  at  my  power  while  hugging  the 
safe  shelter  of  the  hills ;  but  let  me  catch  you  out  on  the 
China  Sea,  and  you  will  never  laugh  again." 

On  the  Bosporus,  the  Hoogly,  and  the  Meinam,  and  in 
the  Bay  of  Jaffna,  I  took  passage  on  the  miniature  steam 
launch  which  was  run  by  an  engine  little  bigger  than  a 
bushel  basket,  and  it  bore  me  as  safely  as  the  mighty  hulk 
which  could  hang  a  score  of  such  launches  along  its  bulwarks 
and  carry  a  thousand  men  inside.  On  the  coast  of  India  I 
trusted  myself  to  surfboats  that  went  through  the  breakers 
like  the  stormy  petrel  rejoicing  in  the  tempest.  The  white 
spray  covered  us  like  a  cloud,  but  we  escaped  safe  to  shore 
with  only  a  little  wetting  and   a  feeling  of  great  relief  that 


MODES    OF   TRAVEL   JX  MANY  LANDS.  1 9 

the  sea  had  its  bounds  that  it  could  not  break  over  and  that 
we  had  passed  beyond  its  wild  domain.  Many  times  for 
short  distances  I  trusted  to  craft  so  small  that  I  was  told  to 
sit  down  and  sit  in  the  middle  of  the  boat  and  not  lean  to 
one  side  or  the  other,  lest  the  little  cockleshell  should  go 
over  and  empty  its  living  cargo  into  the  deep.  On  the  rivers 
and  canals  of  Siam  and  China  and  on  the  Pei-Ho,  the  main 
water  way  to  the  great  capital  of  the  Middle  Kingdom,  I 
lived  for  weeks  in  a  house  boat  which  was  propelled  by  poles 
and  oars  and  sails  or  drawn  by  men  who  made  a  towpath  of 
the  bank  and  who  sometimes  waded  waist  deep  in  mud  and 
water  while  pulling  the  rope.  The  boat  moved  so  slow  at 
times  against  wind  and  current  that  four  men  had  hard  work 
to  gain  a  mile  in  an  hour,  and  it  took  them  six  full  days  to 
complete  a  journey  of  a  hundred  miles,  though  they  worked 
with  quiet  and  uncomplaining  constancy  from  before  sunrise 
in  the  morning  till  after  sunset  at  evening.  The  roof  of  the 
house  in  which  we  lodged  and  dined  and  wrote  was  so  low 
that  a  tall  man  must  stoop  to  stand,  and  the  boatmen  lived 
so  near  to  a  state  of  nature  that  the  captain  had  a  small  wire 
ring  on  his  left  ankle  and  that  was  all  the  clothing  that  the 
four  men  wore.    ^ 

My  conveyances  on  the  land  were  not  less  diverse  and 
interesting  than  those  on  the  water.  In  all  the  East  the 
donkey  is  always  and  everywhere  at  home.  There,  as  every- 
where else,  he  is  kicked  and  cuffed  and  starved.  He  pays 
back  as  many  kicks  as  he  can,  and  he  is  always  lively  enough 
to  make  the  night  hideous  with  his  terrific  squeal  and  his 
awful  bray.  And  he  is  always  ready  to  be  the  meek  and 
much  suffering  servant  of  any  traveler  who  can  accept  lowly 


20  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

conditions  without  complaint,  and  who  will  not  object  to  an 
occasional  blast  of  music  without  words  on  the  way.  He  is 
small  but  spunky  —  so  small  that  a  tall  man  mounted  may 
sometimes  doubt  whether  it  is  his  own  feet  or  the  donkey's 
that  are  doing  the  walking.  It  was  a  constant  wonder  to  me 
how  the  poor  abused  animal  could  live  and  find  enjoyment  in 
making  mischief  for  his  tormentors,  although  every  show  of 
temper  on  his  part  was  sure  to  bring  more  blows,  and  every 
good  service  was  repaid  with  heavier  burdens  and  harder 
fare.  Some  kept  for  travelers  in  Cairo  are  sleek  and  well 
fed.  Some  that  trudge  up  and  down  the  stony  paths  of 
Palestine  feed  on  thorns  and  thistles  by  the  wayside. 
Some  stand  with  purple  housings  and  gilded  bridles  at 
the  rich  man's  door.  But  the  donkey  is  a  donkey  the 
world  round,  meek  and  lowly  in  manner,  obstinate  and 
vicious  in  spirit,  like  the  camel,  intolerable  in  temper,  and 
indispensable  in  use. 

From  Jeypoor  to  Amber  and  back  I  rode  on  an  elephant 
so  large  that  it  seemed  as  if  we  had  mounted  a  black  bowlder 
of  the  hills  and  it  was  rolling  along  the  highway  without 
knowing  or  caring  that  two  pigmies  were  perched  on  its  back 
and  wondering  what  made  it  go  at  the  word  of  command. 
For  an  evening  excursion  of  eight  miles  an  elephant  was 
thankfully  accepted  both  as  an  honor  and  a  pleasure.  But 
for  a  longer  journey  I  should  have  thanked  the  Maharajah  of 
Jeypoor,  who  sent  the  elephant  as  a  princely  courtesy,  and  I 
should  have  felt  obliged  to  say  that  a  due  regard  for  the  com- 
fort of  body  and  brain  required  me  to  prefer  a  horse  or  a 
camel  or  even  a  donkey.  I  would  not  speak  disrespectfully 
of  the  service  of  the  elephant.     I  wondered  as  much  at  his 


MODES   OF   TRA  VEL   IN  MANY  LANDS.  2  I 

intelligence  and  docility  as  I  did  at  the  cunning  and  the  pre- 
tended stupidity  of  the  donkey.  I  saw  the  great  black  beast 
piling  heavy  teak  logs  in  the  shipyards  of  Rangoon.  He 
would  lift  an  enormous  beam  to  its  place  in  the  pile,  then 
step  one  side  to  sight  across  the  end  to  see  if  it  were  even 
with  the  rest  of  the  logs.  If  it  projected  two  or  three 
inches,  he  would  make  a  battering-ram  of  his  head  and  bunt 
it  back  to  an  even  face  with  all  the  other  logs  in  the  pile. 
When  I  saw  the  great  beast  do  that,  I  wished  that  some 
human  laborers  had  as  good  an  eye  for  order  and  harmony  as 
the  elephant. 

In  Bulgaria  I  made  long  journeys  in  a  phaeton  drawn  by 
four  horses  harnessed  abreast  and  driven  by  a  turbaned  and 
bearded  Turk  at  a  speed  that  would  satisfy  the  fast  and 
furious  life  of  young  America  which  bowls  along  the 
macadam  roads  in  the  suburbs  of  our  great  cities.  Then 
again  in  the  same  Bulgaria  I  crossed  the  Shipka  Pass  of  the 
Balkan  Mountains  drawn  by  four  oxen  at  a  pace  so  slow  that 
a  moderate  walk  would  leave  it  far  behind.  The  galloping 
horses  on  the  dusty  plain  and  the  laboring  oxen  on  the 
rugged  mountain  made  no  greater  contrast  than  the  palace 
of  the  prince  in  the  city  and  the  hovel  of  the  peasant  in  the 
villages  of  the  same  country.  Still  again  in  Tinnevelly  and 
Travancore,  in  Southern  India,  I  rode  all  night  in  an  o.x- 
bandy,  lying  on  my  back  in  a  bed  of  straw.  The  oxen  were 
driven  at  a  trot  by  a  coolie,  who  twisted  the  tails  of  his  team 
instead  of  applying  the  lash  to  quicken  their  pace.  The 
long-horned  trotters  were  changed  every  hour,  and  the  relays 
were  so  well  arranged  that  I  found  myself  fifty  miles  away 
in  the  morning  from  the  place  where  I  crept  into  my  bed  of 
straw  the  evening  before. 


22  MORXIXG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

I  made  an  exxursion  from  Calcutta  to  Darjeeling  to  see 
the  three  highest  mountains  in  the  world,  Kunchin-Junga, 
Dhawalaghiri,  and  Mount  Everest.  The  distance  there  and 
back  is  seven  hundred  and  forty-six  miles.  I  slept  on  the 
hard  boards  of  a  second  and  third  class  car  and  found  it 
comfortable.  I  paid  less  than  five  dollars  for  the  whole 
distance  and  thought  it  cheap.  Our  first  run  to  the  river 
Ganges  was  at  the  rate  of  forty-two  miles  an  hour  over  a 
broad-gauge  road.  Our  third  and  last  run  was  over  a  two- 
foot  gauge,  and  the  train  was  forbidden  by  law  to  run  more 
than  seven  miles  an  hour.  We  dodged  into  and  out  of 
ravines  and  defiles  and  gorges  so  often  that  the  spunky  little 
engine  was  in  sight  far  above  us  climbing  the  steep  all  the 
while.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  it  were  a  Bengal  tiger  or  some 
mighty  beast  of  the  cat  kind  which  had  been  caught  and  tied 
by  the  tail  to  our  train  and  it  was  sputtering  and  spitting 
fire  with  fear  and  rage  as  it  was  trying  to  escape  back  to  its 
mountain  den  and  dragging  our  train  by  the  tail  up  the  steep 
all  the  time.  Often  the  driving  wheels  of  the  engine  on 
ahead  were  as  high  as  the  roof  of  the  car  in  which  we  were 
riding.  If  the  coupling  had  broken,  we  should  have  had 
such  an  experience  in  tobogganing  as  a  Canadian  winter 
never  gives  to  those  who  travel  far  to  the  north  to  find  it. 
But  the  fastenings  held  firm  and  we  made  one  fourth  the 
ascent  of  the  highest  mountains  with  the  ease  and  the  pleas- 
ure of  a  holiday  excursion  on  the  plains. 

In  Northern  Syria  and  Asia  Minor  I  rode  days  and  weeks 
on  horses  whose  hard  trot  made  the  camel's  long,  swinging 
gait  seem  like  lullaby  to  the  weary  rider.  I  passed  over 
plains  and  ridges  of  rocky  mountains  which  reminded  me 


MODES    OF   TRAVEL   IN  MANY  LANDS.  2T, 

of  the  time  when  I  rode  thirty  days  on  the  living  ship  of  the 
desert  in  the  wilds  of  Arabia.  The  day  before  reaching 
Carchemish,  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  Hittite  town  on  the 
river  Euphrates,  I  lost  my  riding-stick,  and  I  then  traveled 
on  two  days  under  the  burning  sun  before  I  found  tree  or 
shrub  or  bush  big  enough  to  supply  me  with  another. 
Sometimes  we  went  five  and  six  hours  without  seeing  a  sign 
of  water,  and  when  we  came  to  what  was  called  a  well  it 
would  often  be  nothing  but  a  pool,  turbid  and  muddy, 
trodden  into  mire  by  the  coming  and  going  of  camels  and 
cattle. 

In  Hongkong  and  Shanghai  and  Tientsin  and  all  over 
Japan  I  was  whirled  along  over  smooth  roads  in  the  snug 
little  man-cart  called  the  jinriksha.  I  felt  unwilling  at  first 
to  be  drawn  as  babies  are  drawn  in  our  streets,  and  to  see 
the  strong-muscled  coolie  sweating  and  puffing  between  the 
shafts  just  to  relieve  me  of  a  little  effort  and  to  earn  a  few 
cash  for  himself.  It  looked  to  me  as  if  it  were  making  a 
beast  of  the  man  to  make  him  draw  in  the  shafts  like  a 
horse,  and  I  was  afraid  it  might  have  a  worse  effect  on  me 
to  ride  while  human  muscles  were  tugging  and  pulling  to 
put  me  over  the  road.  But  such  is  the  effect  of  use  that  I 
came  to  like  it  well  in  the  end.  And  when  I  reached  home 
I  did  not  notice  any  sensible  letting  down  of  my  manhood, 
and  I  had  a  higher  respect  for  the  coolie  who  had  drawn  my 
majesty  in  the  streets  of  Toky5  and  Tientsin.  The  man 
who  rides  with  an  umbrella  to  shelter  his  head  from  the  sun 
and  the  man  who  pulls  with  head  and  feet  bare  are  not 
so  far  apart  as  they  look  to  be,  so  long  as  each  fulfills  his 
duty  well. 


24  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

In  the  Jaffna  district  of  Ceylon  I  rode  in  an  American 
rockaway  wagon  which  was  propelled  at  a  rapid  pace  by 
five  coolies,  two  before  to  pull  and  three  behind  to  push,  and 
each  party  responding  to  the  other  with  shout  and  cheer  as 
they  flew  before  the  wind.  The  smooth  road  went  winding 
in  graceful  curves  among  lofty  palms  and  spreading  banyans, 
slender  bamboos  and  sacred  bo-trees.  The  thatched  cot- 
tages of  the  natives  nestled  under  the  shadows  of  lofty 
forests,  seemed  like  cool  retreats  from  the  burning  heat  at 
noon,  and  they  lined  the  way  with  cheery  lights  by  night. 
Occasionally  the  coolies  gave  a  spring  and  a  scream  when 
they  came  upon  a  deadly  cobra  creeping  across  the  path. 
But  the  cobra  was  very  glad  to  get  out  of  the  way  when  he 
heard  the  sound  of  the  coming  carriage,  and  the  coolies 
were  still  more  glad  not  to  provoke  the  fatal  fang  of  the 
serpent  with  their  feet. 

In  Peking,  the  capital  seat  of  a  government  which  rules 
over  more  millions  of  people  than  any  other  government  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  I  rode  through  broad  streets  a  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  wide.  My  carriage  was  a  springless  cart, 
the  common  conveyance  of  passengers  in  the  great  imperial 
city  of  the  Central  Flowery  Kingdom.  The  body  of  the 
cart  was  bolted  to  a  wooden  axle,  the  wheels  were  loaded  all 
over  spokes  and  felloes  with  iron  spikes  having  solid  heads 
as  large  as  a  silver  dollar.  The  cover  or  body  of  the  carriage 
was  shaped  like  a  dog  kennel  with  a  rounded  roof  not  high 
enough  to  .stand  up  in  and  with  no  seat  to  sit  down  upon. 
The  only  endurable  place  for  the  passenger  was  on  the  shaft 
at  the  tail  of  the  horse.  In  the  wet  season  you  are  covered 
with  mud,  in  the   dry   season  with  dust ;  but  bad  as   is  the 


MODES    OF  TRA  VEL   IN  MANY  LANDS. 


25 


riding  it  is  better  than  walking  in  the  streets  as  you  find 
them  in  wet  or  dry.  The  roadway  was  a  bank  of  mingled 
mud  and  dust  in  the  middle  of  the  street  and  four  or  five 
feet  above  the  level  where  the  sidewalk  ought  to  be.  The 
ridge  was  made  from  the  accumulated  offal  and  filth  of  ages. 
On  the  sides  of  the  central  causeway  which  constituted  the 
only  road  was  a  stygian  abyss  of  mire  and  all  manner  of 
foul  and  abominable  sewage  so  deep  that  in  the  rainy  sea- 
son, I  was  told  by  long-time  residents,  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing  for  a  driver  to  lose  his  way  on  the  central  ridge  of 
mud,  pitch  down  the  bank,  and  man  and  horse  and  passenger 
all  be  drowned  together  in  the  deep  mire  that  makes  the 
broad  street.  And  all  that  under  the  very  eye  and  hand  of 
the  imperial  government  which  has  camped  down  in  that 
abyss,  that  reeking  quagmire  of  filth,  as  if  it  were  ambitious 
to  show  its  magnificence  by  surpassing  all  the  slums  and 
sewers  of  all  the  cities  of  the  empire. 

I  was  carried  through  the  streets  of  Canton  and  over 
the  millet  fields  from  the  Western  Hills  thirteen  miles  to 
Peking  and  thirteen  more  over  an  imperial  stone  road  from 
Peking  to  Tungchow  and  across  rice  fields  from  Fuchau  to 
the  Fushan  Mountain  in  a  chair  borne  on  the  shoulders  of 
men.  I  never  seemed  to  myself  so  heavy  as  I  did  when  I 
sat  in  the  chair  and  saw  the  hard  bamboo  carrying  poles 
resting  upon  the  bare  shoulders  of  the  men,  and  I  heard 
them  panting  up  the  steep  places  to  save  me  the  weariness 
of  walking.  I  found  that  mode  of  riding  a  little  more 
trying  to  my  feeling  of  independence  and  self-respect  than 
conveyance  in  a  man-drawn  riksha. 

And  yet,  last  of  all,  and  most  astonishing  of  all  to  myself 


26  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

as  I  remember  it  now,  I  must  confess  that  I  was  carried  up 
a  mountain  five  hundred  feet  high  to  visit  an  old  Buddhist 
monastery  near  Suchau  in  a  sedan  chair,  and  the  bamboo 
poles  which  bore  my  masculine  weight  rested  upon  the 
shoulders  of  women.  I  was  slow  to  consent  to  what  seemed 
to  me  an  indignity  both  to  myself  and  the  women,  although 
they  were  coolies  and  were  accustomed  to  many  kinds  of 
work  much  less  suited  to  their  sex  than  carrying  sedan 
chairs.  I  consented  at  last  when  told  that  the  women  would 
be  greatly  disappointed  if  they  did  not  have  the  opportunity 
to  earn  a  few  cash  by  the  service.  I  was  willing  to  give  the 
money  and  go  up  the  mountain  on  foot.  But  I  was  told 
that  that  would  demoralize  the  people  and  make  much 
trouble  for  them  and  for  other  travelers  that  might  come 
afterwards.  So  I  took  my  seat  in  the  chair  and  the  women 
lifted  the  weight  to  their  shoulders  and  moved  on.  They 
sung  and  shouted  at  their  work,  but  I  shadowed  my  face 
with  my  umbrella  for  very  shame  to  see  myself  carried  in 
such  fashion.  Finally  I  made  signs  to  the  women  to  put 
me  down  and  I  would  pay  them  full  fare  for  their  work  and 
take  my  own  time  to  climb  the  steep  in  my  own  unaided 
strength.  The  mercury  was  in  the  nineties  and  there  was 
no  punka  to  take  the  place  of  a  breeze  on  the  hills.  But  the 
height  was  gained  in  good  time,  and  the  poor,  stolid  women 
wondered  at  the  strange  sight  of  a  man  willing  to  walk  when 
he  had  the  best  opportunity  to  ride  —  an  unusual  thing  to 
see  in  China  or  anywhere  else  in  the  East. 

The  women  of  America,  the  most  highly  privileged  and 
blessed  of  all  the  women  of  the  earth,  sometimes  complain 
that  they  are  shut  out  from  occupations  which  are  open  to 


MODES   OF  TRAVEL   IN  MANY  LANDS.  27 

men.  Let  them  go  to  the  far  East  and  they  will  find 
some  of  those  restrictions  removed.  In  India  and  China  and 
Japan  they  will  find  full  and  free  permission  to  carry  coal  in 
baskets  for  the  supply  of  steamboats  lying  in  the  harbors  ; 
they  can  carry  baggage  and  heavy  loads  of  merchandise  on 
their  heads  and  so  cultivate  an  erect  and  easy  gait  in  walk- 
ing ;  they  can  gather  offal  and  remove  sewage  in  the  open 
streets  of  great  cities  and  nobody  will  forbid  them,  nobody 
will  think  they  are  doing  anything  unsuited  to  their  sex 
or  inconsistent  with  the  usages  of  good  society.  They  can 
creep  on  hands  and  knees  in  mud  and  water  six  inches  deep, 
pulling  up  weeds  between  rows  of  rice  in  the  paddy  fields, 
and  breathing  the  odors  of  sewage  with  which  the  grain  is 
watered  from  the  town.  They  can  even  carry  strong  men 
in  chairs  supported  by  bamboo  poles  resting  upon  their 
tender  shoulders.  They  can  climb,  panting  for  breath  under 
such  burdens,  up  the  steep  sides  of  mountains  and  receive 
a  small  string  of  copper  cash  for  the  hard  service.  They 
can  be  permitted  to  do  many  other  things  which  a  due  regard 
for  the  decencies  of  the  printed  page  forbid  us  to  mention. 
The  women  of  China  and  India  may  well  teach  the  women 
of  America  to  guard  well  and  sacredly  the  great  honor  and 
privilege  enjoyed  by  them  now,  and  not  lightly  throw  away 
or  neglect  the  keeping  of  what  they  have,  for  other  supposed 
privileges  and  official  responsibilities  of  doubtful  worth  and 
dangerous  tendency.  Of  all  lands  on  earth,  America  is  the 
paradise  of  women,  and  it  becomes  them  to  preserve  that 
paradise  in  pure  and  holy  keeping,  lest  rash  and  restless 
spirits,  under  the  name  of  reform,  should  make  it  a  pande- 
monium   of    contending   passions    or    a    trampled    arena    of 


28  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

political  strife.  What  is  gained  by  contention  and  con- 
troversy may  be  little  compensation  for  what  is  lost  in 
delicacy  in  feeling,  modesty  in  deportment,  peace  and  purity 
in  all  the  relations  of  home  and  domestic  life.  The  people 
of  the  East  have  harems  and  hovels,  zenanas  and  cloisters 
in  abundance,  and  there  is  little  to  choose  between  the  self- 
ishness and  profligacy  of  the  princes  and  the  ignorance  and 
degradation  of  the  people.  Both  have  yet  to  learn  that  the 
new  life,  the  glorious  and  immortal  hope  which  gives 
strength  and  progress  to  western  nations  must  come  to 
them  from  the  Christian  home.  And  it  is  the  great  and 
divine  mission  of  Christian  women  to  teach  that  lesson  to 
the  millions  of  Asia  that  know  it  not.  In  that  service 
American  women  will  find  greater  honor  and  more  abundant 
reward  than  in  passionate  struggles  for  responsibilities  which 
they  are  not  fitted  to  bear  or  in  the  feverish  and  wasteful 
rivalries  of  fashionable  life. 


III. 


EXTREMES    AND    CONTRASTS. 


TN  making  the  circuit  of  the  globe  and  turning  aside  from 
-'-  the  direct  course  to  see  whatever  is  best  worth  seeing 
on  the  way,  the  traveler  lights  upon  every  variety  of  scene 
which  the  earth  presents  and  every  variety  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  which  the  earth  produces.  Once  I  went 
northward  to  sit  with  the  Lap  in  his  turf-covered  cabin 
and  to  watch  the  reindeer  on  the  moss-covered  hills  about 
the  North  Cape  in  the  gentle  light  of  the  Midnight  Sun. 
The  birch  and  spruce  and  pine  did  not  venture  so  far  into 
the  kingdom  of  eternal  cold.  But  the  summer's  day  took 
in  the  whole  night,  and  there  was  neither  morning  nor  even- 
ing in  the  whole  twenty-four  hours.  I  seemed  to  stand  on 
the  top  of  the  world,  and  the  king  of  day  went  round  and 
round  in  a  coronet  of  light  just  above  my  head.  And  then 
again  in  this  last  journey  I  went  southward  till  I  saw  the 
north  star  go  down  to  the  horizon  and  the  southern  cross 
come  up  with  the  dazzling  retinue  of  the  many-throned 
powers  of  the  heavenly  host  that  surround  the  starry  sym- 
bol of  the  world's  redemption. 

Many  times  in  the  long  journey  I  gazed  witli  wonder  and 
awe  upon  the  ranges  of  mighty  mountains,  Alps  and  Apen- 
nines, Rhodope  and  the  Balkan,  Olympus  and  Parnassus, 
Taurus  and   Lebanon,  Sinai  in  Arabia  and  Adam's   Peak  in 

29 


30  MORXING   IJGIir  IN  MAXY  LANDS. 

Ceylon,  Fusiyama  in  Japan  and  Hindu  Kush  in  Afghanistan, 
and  the  mighty  wall  of  the  Hinimaleh,  the  highest  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  the  ridge  of  the  world  which  human  foot 
has  never  climbed,  the  abode  of  snows  which  the  sun  has 
never  melted,  the  source  of  rivers  that  bear  the  food  of 
millions  in  their  waters,  and  that  traverse  a  thousand 
leagues  of  land  on  their  way  to  the  sea.  Then  again  many 
a  time  I  looked  around  the  whole  circle  of  the  horizon  in 
vain  to  find  a  hill  high  enough  to  break  the  dead  level  of 
grain  and  grass  and  cultivated  field.  The  thatched  roofs  of 
villages  and  the  yellow  heads  of  sorghum  and  millet  and  rice 
and  corn  looked  so  much  alike  that  it  was  a  relief  to  the  eye 
to  see  the  antlers  of  the  deer  sometimes  rising  above  the 
grain  and  the  black  wings  of  the  rook  and  the  raven  casting 
a  shadow  upon  the  glittering  ocean  of  sunlight.  The  plain 
of  the  land  was  like  the  plain  of  the  sea,  "  boundless,  end- 
less, and  sublime."  Then  again  I  passed  over  a  treeless  and 
burning  waste,  where  for  miles  and  hours  of  travel  I  found 
no  well  or  fountain  of  water  to  wet  my  parched  lips  or  slake 
my  thirst.  The  birds  overhead  flew  in  flocks  and  all  one 
way,  as  if  fleeing  from  a  land  that  famine  had  made  a  desert. 
From  such  scenes,  in  Northern  Syria  and  on  the  banks  of 
the  ancient  river  Euphrates,  I  turned  southward  on  the  long 
voyage  by  Suez  and  the  Red  Sea  to  Ceylon.  When  I  first 
landed  at  Columbo,  on  that  beautiful  island,  my  first  experi- 
ence was  a  feeling  of  inexpressible  delight  and  surprise  at 
the  wild  luxuriance  and  endless  variety  of  vegetation.  The 
wide-branching  banyan  and  the  sacred  bo-tree,  the  feathery 
palm  and  the  graceful  bamboo,  mangosteens  and  mangoes, 
dorions  and  bheels,  and  nameless  trees  ablaze  with  blossoms, 


EXTREMES  AND    CONTRASTS. 


31 


camphor  and  cinnamon,  climbing  vines  and  ferns  a  hundred 
feet  high,  bananas  and  plantains  and  palmyras,  the  lofty 
eucalyptus,  the  medicinal  cinchona,  the  hillsides  covered 
with  the  garden-like  culture  of  tea  and  coffee,  the  lowlands 
waving,  like  our  wheat  fields,  with  rice,  and  the  higher 
grounds  with  the  heavier  growth  of  maize  and  millet  and 
sorghum  —  all  seemed  like  a  new  creation  when  compared 
with  the  naked  hills  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  sunburnt 
plains  of  Bulgaria,  which  I  was  traversing  in  the  early  days 
of  autumn.  To  be  transferred  at  once  from  the  barren  sea 
and  the  more  barren  mountains  of  the  North  to  such  a  scene 
of  life  and  luxuriant  vegetation  made  it  seem  to  me  as  if 
some  omnific  word  had  gone  forth  upon  the  waste  and 
bidden  it  blossom  like  the  rose  and  bring  forth  fruit  in  per- 
fection, like  the  garden  of  Paradise  under  the  culture  of  a 
divine  hand. 

On  that  fertile  and  steamy  island  of  the  great  sea  a  seed 
need  only  be  dropped  by  a  bird  of  the  air  or  a  breeze  from 
the  mountains  and  something  useful  to  man  will  grow  — 
some  blooming  flower  will  breathe  its  perfume  on  the  air, 
some  climbing  vine  will  wreathe  a  bower  to  shade  the  weary 
from  the  noontide  heat,  some  fruit-bearing  tree  will  load  its 
branches  with  food  for  the  hungry  and  invite  them  to  eat. 
The  native  people,  with  rice  enough  for  daily  want  and  fruit 
in  abundance  to  be  had  for  picking,  do  not  mind  it  much  if 
they  have  nothing  to  wear.  They  seem  to  grow  out  of  the 
earth  like  the  palm  and  the  banyan  ;  their  complexion  is  like 
the  brown  soil  which  they  lazily  till  and  tread  upon,  and 
when  they  go  back  to  the  earth  like  the  leaves  and  the 
blossoms  there  are  so  many  of  them  left  to  fill  their  place 


32  MORNING   LIGHT   IN  MANY  LANDS. 

that  nobody  is  missed  and  few  tears  are  shed  for  those  that 
arc  gone.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  developments  of  heathen- 
ism in  the  old  lands  of  the  populous  East  that  a  man's  life 
is  worth  so  little  to  himself  or  to  anybody  else.  If  he  live 
long,  there  is  little  chance  that  he  will  make  the  world  any 
better  by  his  life  ;  if  he  die  early,  there  is  just  as  little 
chance  that  the  world  will  lose  anything  by  his  death. 
There  were  more  people  in  the  world  than  were  wanted 
when  he  came  into  it  ;  the  crowd  and  the  competition  for 
food  and  subsistence  will  be  just  as  great  when  he  has  gone 
out  of  it.  To  him  and  to  all,  the  human  family  is  like  the 
crew  of  a  sinking  ship  thrown  out  upon  the  deep  and  all 
struggling  and  contending  with  each  other  for  the  posses- 
sion of  a  plank  or  a  piece  of  furniture  on  which  to  float  for 
a  while,  in  hope  of  rescue  or  of  reaching  the  shore.  The 
strongest  survive  and  the  feeble  go  down  and  none  can  say 
which  is  better,  to  drown  at  once  or  to  endure  the  torture 
of  thirst  and  weariness  and  cold  a  little  longer  in  hope  of 
rescue. 

In  the  course  of  the  long  journey  I  passed  through  all 
extremes  of  climate,  from  heat  to  cold  and  from  rain  and 
hail  to  drought  and  sunshine.  At  Newara  Eliya  on  the 
mountains  of  Ceylon,  within  seven  degrees  of  the  equator, 
I  crouched  for  an  hour  over  an  open  fire  at  evening  to  get 
warm  enough  to  go  to  bed.  I  slept  under  a  thick  pile  of 
blankets  and  forgot  that  I  was  in  the  torrid  zone.  In 
Northern  Syria  and  Turkey  I  slept  on  the  roof  of  the  guard- 
house, where  soldiers  kept  watch  to  be  within  call  of  trav- 
elers who  might  fall  among  thieves  or  get  lost  in  the  waste 
places  of  the  wilderness.     I  waked   many  times  and   found 


EXTREMES  AND    CONTRASTS. 


33 


it  convenient  to  look  up  to  tlie  stars  instead  of  the  clock  face 
to  see  how  far  on  the  hours  of  the  night  had  passed  and 
when  the  herald  of  the  dawn  would  appear.  It  was  pleasant 
to  think  that  my  timekeeper  hanging  high  over  head  beyond 
my  reach  had  been  wound  up  and  set  a-going  from  of  old  by 
a  divine  hand  and  that  it  had  not  lost  a  minute  in  thousands 
of  years.  In  all  my  wanderings  I  was  glad  to  look  up  to 
that  great  dial-plate  of  the  heavens  and  feel  assured  that 
the  standard  of  time  for  all  ages  and  nations  is  kept  by  One 
whose  ways  are  everlasting  and  with  whom  there  is  no  varia- 
bleness nor  shadow  of  turning. 

At  Madras  I  was  hospitably  entertained  by  one  of  the 
Council  of  Five,  who  made  and  executed  law  for  thirty 
millions  of  people.  My  bedroom  at  his  house  was  forty  feet 
long,  thirty  feet  wide,  and  twenty  feet  high.  On  the  steamer 
Yokohama  Maru  my  room  was  just  long  enough  for  me  to 
stretch  my  length  from  end  to  end,  and  just  wide  enough  to 
let  me  extend  my  two  arms  the  other  way.  And  I  slept 
equally  well  under  the  high  ceiling  of  the  honorable  Coun- 
cilor's chamber,  and  under  the  higher  canopy  of  the  stars 
and  in  the  narrow  crib  of  the  rocking  and  rolling  ship.  My 
thank  offering  in  the  morning  was  as  sincere  in  the  one  case 
as  in  the  other.  One  of  the  lessons  which  I  went  around 
the  world  to  learn  was,  how  to  sleep  peacefully  wherever 
night  overtakes  the  traveler,  and  how  to  rise  up  with  grati- 
tude and  praise  wherever  morning  breaks  and  brings  the 
new  day.  Sleep,  in  any  case,  seems  like  the  twin  brother 
of  death,  and  waking  is  as  nearly  related  to  the  resurrec- 
tion from  the  dead,  and  both  come  evening  and  morning  to 
ieach  us  gently,  silently,  the  blessedness  of  the  sleep  which 


34  MOKX/NG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

God  will  give  to  his  beloved  when  their  day  of  life  is  done, 
and  the  glory  of  waking  into  a  life  which  shall  have  no  end. 
To  him  who  learns  that  lesson  well,  it  matters  little  whether 
he  lies  down  for  his  last  slumber  alone  in  the  waste  places 
of  the  earth,  or  he  finds  his  last  resting-place  in  the  bosom 
of  the  great  deep.  The  angel  messengers,  who  come  to 
bear  his  emancipated  spirit  home,  will  find  him  as  easily  in 
one  place  as  another. 

At  Naina  Tal,  on  a  spur  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains,  a 
hailstorm  burst  in  my  window  at  midnight,  and  hailstones 
lay  in  banks  like  drifted  snow  about  the  house  in  the  morn- 
ing. I  rode  down  the  mountain  through  a  jungle,  where  a 
tiger  had  been  seen  the  week  before  leaping  over  the  high 
grass  and  brushwood  in  the  wild  freedom  of  his  native 
home.  I  slept  the  following  night  at  Bareilly  in  a  room  so 
hot  that  when  I  laid  my  hand  upon  the  marble  table  it  felt 
to  me  as  if  it  had  been  heated  over  the  fire.  I  was  thank- 
ful for  the  hailstorm  of  the  mountains,  not  less  so  for  the 
bed  in  the  hot  room  on  the  plain,  and  I  only  wished  that  I 
had  seen  the  tiger  at  a  safe  distance  in  the  jungle  to  com- 
plete the  climax  in  a  day  of  wonder  and  varied  delight. 
The  main  objection  to  the  climate  in  most  countries  of  the 
East  is  its  uniformity.  Si.x  months  of  cloud  and  rain,  and 
then  six  months  of  sunshine  ;  wind  blowing  from  one  direc- 
tion all  the  time  for  half  a  year,  and  then  wind  blowing  just 
as  long  from  the  opposite  quarter  ;  temperature  at  ninety  and 
a  hundred  from  May  to  November,  and  then  temperature 
at  sixty-five  and  seventy  to  May  again  ;  and  so  runs  on  the 
even  tenor  of  dull  life  for  millions  in  the  populous  lands  of 
the  East.     And  the  same  uniformity  is  in  food  and  fashions 


EXTREMES  AXD    CONTRASTS. 


35 


of  dress  and  modes  of  living.  Rice  in  the  morning,  rice  at 
noon,  and  rice  at  night  ;  a  few  rags  of  clothing  in  winter,  a 
few  less  in  summer,  and  a  house  of  mud  and  reeds  all  the 
time.  How  to  awaken  any  degree  of  mental  activity  or 
moral  aspiration  among  millions  of  such  people  is  the  great 
question  which  confronts  all  Christian  missionaries  in  the 
East.  People  who  complain  of  frequent  changes  in  weather 
and  fashions  in  dress  and  modes  of  living  in  our  cold 
and  hot  New  England  climate  forget  that  they  are  indebted 
to  such  changes  for  a  large  part  of  their  energy,  vivacity, 
invention,  and  enjoyment  of  life.  The  people  in  the  tropics 
must  look  to  the  temperate  zone  for  the  stimulus  which  will 
rouse  them  from  the  sleep  of  ages  and  inspire  them  with 
faith  and  energy  to  join  the  grand  march  of  the  Christian 
nations  toward  a  greater  and  truer  life  than  has  ever  yet 
been  lived  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth. 

In  the  course  of  five  thousand  miles  of  travel  in  India, 
and  as  many  more  in  the  farther  East,  I  saw  all  extremes  of 
poverty  and  riches,  princely  magnificence  and  pariah  degra- 
dation. The  wealth  displayed  in  the  construction  of  palaces 
and  temples  and  tombs  was  the  spoil  accumulated  by  ages 
of  cruelty  and  oppression.  The  poverty  was  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  ignorance  and  superstition  and  it  had  been 
for  centuries  the  uniform  condition  of  an  oppressed  and 
plundered  people.  I  sat  on  the  "Peacock  Throne"  of  the 
mightiest  of  the  great  moguls.  The  golden  plumes  and  the 
flashing  gems  that  canopied  the  head  of  the  great  emperor 
were  gone,  but  the  marble  seat  and  the  gilded  ceiling  were 
still  there  as  in  the  days  of  Aurungzebe  and  Akbar.  It 
was  the  highest    representative    of   royal    state   as    it    once 


36  Jl/OA'A'LVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

appeared  adorned  with  pearl  and  gold  in  eastern  story. 
Travelers  and  ambassadors  from  the  West,  who  were  favored 
with  an  audience  by  the  grim  despots  of  Delhi  and  Agra, 
brought  home  tales  of  the  dazzling  sj^lendors  and  the 
exhaustless  wealth  of  the  "gorgeous  East."  And  yet 
they  had  only  to  look  out  from  beneath  the  gilded  arches 
of  the  audience  chamber  upon  the  surrounding  country  and 
they  could  see  the  landscape  covered  with  the  mud  cabins 
of  the  poor,  whose  forced  toil  had  built  the  palaces  and 
supplied  the  riches  and  splendors  in  which  despots  reveled 
and  which  poets  celebrated  in  lofty  rhyme.  At  Delhi  and 
Agra  and  Muttra  and  Jeypoor  and  Amber  and  Ahmenabad 
and  Aurungabad  I  walked  through  the  halls  of  princes  that 
were  adorned  with  marbles  cut  with  every  device  of  art 
and  emblazoned  with  gold-covered  ceilings  and  arches  and 
columns  and  glittering  with  precious  stones  that  it  cost  a 
kingdom  or  a  great  battle  to  buy.  They  had  been  all  built 
out  of  the  guilty  spoils  of  war  or  the  cruel  oppressions  of 
the  poor.  It  made  my  nerves  tingle  to  hear  the  tales  of 
crime  and  profligacy  which  had  held  high  carnival  within 
those  gilded  walls  and  chambers  which  men  travel  thousands 
of  miles  to  see  and  which  poets  adorn  with  all  the  fascina- 
tions of  royal  magnificence  and  romantic  love.  They  seemed 
to  me  cheerless  and  cold  and  tomblike,  and  little  better  fitted 
to  be  the  homes  of  peace  and  purity  than  the  mud  hovels 
of  the  poor  whose  unpaid  labor  had  hewn  and  polished  the 
marble  and  burnished  the  gold  and  set  the  precious  stones 
that  emblazoned  the  walls. 

I  sat  on  the  platform  with  rajahs  and  princes  of  India  in 
the  great   Hall   of  Calcutta,  on  the  occasion  of    presenting 


EXTREMES  AND    CONTRASTS. 


37 


a  testimonial  to  the  retiring  viceroy,  Lord  Dufferin.  The 
chairman  was  a  maharajah  with  many  titles  of  great  renown, 
a  descendant,  I  was  led  to  suppose,  of  some  mighty  mogul 
or  magnificent  shah  of  the  olden  time.  He  wore  a  coronet 
of  gold,  and  an  aigrette  of  diamonds,  set  in  the  crown  like 
plumes  of  the  peacock,  was  tossing  and  flashing  with  light 
at  every  movement  of  his  head.  I  fancied  he  might  be  a 
representative,  in  a  small  way,  of  Akbar  or  Aurungzebe  or 
Jehan,  as  they  sat  in  royal  state  on  the  Peacock  Throne  in 
the  golden  audience  chamber  at  Delhi.  I  had  seen  him, 
as  he  came  down  on  the  train  from  Benares,  stepping  out 
upon  the  platform  of  the  railway  station  at  Patna,  with  a 
retinue  of  servants  about  him.  When  he  called,  they 
approached  him  half-bent  to  the  earth  and  with  hands 
clasped  as  if  in  the  act  of  worship.  They  seemed  to  think 
it  the  highest  honor  to  walk  in  his  train  or  to  lift  his  pipe 
to  his  mouth,  or  to  pick  up  and  replace  his  golden  slipper, 
if  it  should  chance  to  fall  from  his  foot.  But  to  me  the 
grand  maharajah  looked  coarse  and  lazy,  vulgar  and  sen- 
sual and  beastly,  in  the  presence  of  the  whirling  wheels 
and  the  hissing  steam  of  the  nineteenth  century.  And  I 
thought  that  possibly  the  great  moguls  themselves  would 
not  look  much  better  to  us  if  seen  in  the  clearer  light 
which  shines  on  princes  and  people  in  our  day.  In  that 
same  great  Hall  of  Calcutta,  where  maharajahs  were  clothed 
in  purple  and  flashing  with  diamonds,  I  saw  the  poor  pariah, 
the  carrier  of  burdens,  the  scavenger  of  the  streets,  with 
only  a  loin-cloth  to  cover  his  nakedness,  and  with  nothing 
better  than  the  bare  earth  or  the  stone  pavement  for  a  bed 
when  nifrht  came.     And  I  doubted  which  found  most  to  live 


2 8  AroRA'nvG  light  ix  many  lands. 

for,  the  proud  rajah  with  a  harem  of  sensuaHty  for  a  home 
and  a  retinue  of  servants  to  save  him  the  trouble  of  liftinj; 
his  hand,  or  the  poor  pariah  who  earned  his  rice  by  toil  and 
slept  soundly  wherever  the  night  might  find  him. 

I  saw  the  marble  tombs  and  the  mighty  mausoleums  of 
the  great  moguls,  Aurungzebe  and  Jehangir  and  Shah 
Jehan  of  Agra  and  Delhi  and  Aurungabad.  I  saw  by  day- 
light and  by  moonlight,  the  Taj,  the  wondrous  tomb  that 
cost  twenty  millions  of  money  and  twenty  thousand  lives  of 
laborers  and  twenty  years  of  toil.  I  saw  the  scarcely  less 
costly  resting  places  of  the  great  daimios  and  shoguns  and 
mikados  of  Japan.  I  stood  in  ignorant  wonder  as  I  tried  in 
vain  to  read  the  long  inscriptions  upon  the  marble  columns 
that  stood  upon  the  back  of  enormous  marble  tortoises  at 
Nanking  and  Peking  and  along  the  imperial  road  leading  to 
the  capital  city,  and  telling  the  greatness  of  whole  dynasties 
of  princes  and  emperors  whose  ashes  lay  beneath  the  stone. 
I  sat  and  cooled  myself  from  the  hot  sun  in  the  shadow  of 
the  great  domes  of  Golconda  in  Hyderabad  where  the  great 
Mohammedan  princes  sleep  in  glory  each  in  his  own  bed. 
Kingdoms  had  been  impoverished  to  build  those  monumental 
tombs.  They  were  emblazoned  with  gold  and  marble  and 
precious  stones,  and  they  were  adorned  with  every  device  of 
exquisite  art.  Weary  thousands  of  unpaid  laborers  had 
toiled  for  years  in  building  up  lofty  platforms  of  stone  and 
raising  graceful  minarets  and  columns  and  arches.  They 
were  not  consecrated  wdth  shrines  and  altars  and  incense 
and  images  and  idols  as  the  heathen  dedicate  their  tombs. 
But  they  were  accounted  so  holy  that  in  some  cases  I  was 
required  to  put  off  my  shoes  from  my  feet  before  I  could 


EXTREMES  AND    CONTRASTS. 


39 


enter.  As  I  walked  through  miles  of  arched  corridors  and 
shady  retreats,  where  the  dim  light  fell  on  tessellated  floors 
and  walls  set  with  precious  stones,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  the 
fleeting  centuries  of  the  past  had  come  back  and  spread 
their  cloudy  wings  around  me,  and  the  pagan  and  Moslem 
princes  of  other  times  were  frowning  upon  me  from  their 
gilded  thrones  because  I  had  intruded  upon  their  repose  witl: 
the  tread  of  unhallowed  feet.  The  echo  of  the  slightest 
word  that  came  back  redoubled  from  the  vaulted  ceiling 
seemed  like  the  whisper  of  pitying  angels  that  had  come 
there  to  lament  the  vanity  of  all  human  greatness  and  to 
bewail  the  transitory  state  of  man  on  the  earth. 

But  then  I  looked  out  upon  broad  fields  where  the  naked 
pariah  dragged  his  rude  plow  over  the  ashes  of  millions  of 
the  dead  who  died  with  no  pitying  eye  to  weep  their  fall  and 
no  friendly  hand  to  set  up  a  memorial  stone  to  mark  the 
spot  where  they  were  buried.  And  I  thought  the  ashes  of 
the  pariah  slept  as  peacefully  in  the  open  paddy  field  or  on 
the  sunny  hillside  without  a  shrine  or  a  monument,  as  did 
the  ashes  of  moguls  and  daimios  and  shoguns  under  roofs 
of  fretted  gold  and  in  mausoleums  of  sculptured  marble. 
The  mere  earthly  elements  of  the  story  of  birth  and  death, 
the  coming  and  the  going  of  a  human  life,  are  very  much 
the  same  in  either  case.  In  the  palace  or  the  hovel  there  is 
a  little  flutter  of  excitement,  a  faint  cry  of  mingled  pleasure 
and  pain  over  the  coming  of  a  new  claimant  for  all  the 
honors  and  joys  that  earth  can  give,  or  a  new  subject  to  all 
the  burdens  and  sorrows  that  earth  can  impose.  It  may  be 
that  the  kingdom  has  already  too  many  competitors  for  its 
crown  and  the  newcomer  is   not   wanted.     It   may  be  that 


40  MORNING   LIGHT   IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  hovel  is  already  more  than  full  and  it  gives  little  joy  that 
there  is  one  more  hungry  mouth  to  swell  the  daily  cry  for 
bread.  But  the  years  pass  swiftly  on  and  the  struggle  for 
life  is  as  sharp  for  the  prince  as  for  the  pariah.  There  is 
toil  and  weariness,  brief  success  and  bitter  defeat,  in  either 
case.  To  the  prince,  the  crown  is  not  worth  the  purchase 
of  rivalry  and  battle  and  blood.  To  the  pariah,  a  life  of  toil 
and  hunger  and  pain  is  not  worth  living  if  that  is  all  there  is 
of  man.  At  length,  after  a  time  that  always  seems  short, 
however  long  it  may  have  been,  there  is  a  sudden  going  out 
of  a  life  which  had  just  begun,  just  as  a  puff  of  air  coming 
in  at  the  window  at  evening  blows  out  the  flame  of  a  candle. 
Then  the  great  world  goes  on  just  as  before.  A  slight 
ripple  has  risen  upon  the  great  sea  of  existence  and  then 
sunk  back  again  into  the  deep,  and  no  mark  on  the  surface 
shows  where  the  little  wave  went  down.  That  is  the  story 
and  the  whole  story  of  a  human  life,  whether  of  prince  or 
peasant,  if  earth  be  our  only  home  and  death  ends  all  for 
man.  It  is  only  the  great  hope  of  the  endless  life  to  come 
that  gives  greatness  to  man  here,  whether  he  be  the  mon- 
arch on  the  throne  or  the  pariah  in  the  rice  field,  whether  he 
lie  at  last  enshrined  in  marble  and  canopied  with  gold,  or 
his  dust  mingle  with  the  common  soil  which  "the  rude  swain 
turns  with  his  share  and  treads  upon."  But  the  other  life, 
which  lies  beyond  this,  is  so  great  and  mighty  that  all  dis- 
tinctions of  earthly  rank  or  riches  or  power  sink  into  insig- 
nificance when  compared  with  the  infinite  destiny  of  immor- 
tality. If  this  life  be  all,  there  is  not  much  to  choose 
between  the  greatest  of  the  moguls  of  Delhi  and  Agra  and 
the  meanest  pariah,  who  finds  an  unknown  grave  in  the  mud 


EXTREMES  AND    CONTRASTS.  41 

of  the  Ganges  or  on  the  mountains  of  the  north  from  which 
the  sacred  river  flows  on  its  way  to  the  sea.  Palaces  and 
temples  and  tombs,  crowns  and  scepters  and  royal  robes,  are 
but  trifles,  playthings  of  an  hour,  to  him  who  shall  wear  the 
crown  of  immortality  and  shine  like  the  stars  in  the  firma- 
ment forever  and  ever. 


IV. 


THE    SOUTHERN    CROSS. 

A  JOURNEY  round  the  globe  gives  one  a  grand  oppor- 
■^  ^  tunity  to  see  the  great  and  marvelous  works  of  the 
Lord  Almighty  in  many  lands  and  on  the  boundless  sea. 
In  passing  from  land  to  land  and  from  ocean  to  ocean  it  is 
an  unspeakable  satisfaction  to  feel  that  you  can  never  go 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  upholding  hand  and  guiding  eye 
of  Him  who  made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  filled  them 
with  riches  and  glories  for  his  children  to  enjoy.  The  earth 
flies  in  its  orbit  a  thousand  times  faster  than  the  swiftest 
railway  train,  and  yet  the  mountains  stand  firm  upon  their 
base,  the  sea  is  not  shaken  out  of  its  bed,  the  feathery  palm 
and  the  delicate  bamboo  are  not  swayed  by  the  swiftness  of 
the  motion,  and  you  feel  that  the  everlasting  arms  are  about 
you  in  every  clime,  and  all  the  powers  in  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  are  harmonized  by  an  everlasting  covenant  well- 
ordered  and  sure.  You  traverse  plains  and  climb  mountains 
and  cross  seas  ;  you  observe  every  variety  of  tree  and  plant 
and  fruit  and  flower ;  you  find  all  living  creatures  making 
their  congenial  home  on  the  earth,  in  the  waters  and  the 
air ;  you  study  the  aspects  of  the  earth  and  the  heavens  at 
all  seasons  and  under  all  changes,  —  and  you  come  home 
from  the  long  journev  with  a  deeper  feeling  than  you  ever 
had  before  that  one  Mind  created  and  one  Will  controls  all 

42 


THE  SOUTHERN  CROSS.  43 

forms  and  forces,  all  life  and  being,  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
You  settle  down  more  content  to  live  in  the  great  house 
which  your  Father  has  made  for  his  children,  and  more 
thankful  for  the  varied  and  exhaustless  riches  with  which 
the  earth  is  filled  for  all  creatures  to  enjoy. 

As  I  sailed  southward  toward  the  equator  I  saw  the  north 
star  go  down  to  the  rim  of  the  horizon  and  at  the  same  time 
I  saw  the  sacred  constellation  of  the  southern  cross  com^ 
slowly  up  night  after  night  to  look  in  pity  on  the  darkened 
millions,  who  were  just  beginning,  one  by  one,  to  look  up 
and  rejoice  in  the  brightness  of  its  rising.  I  remember  well 
a  pleasant  night  in  June  when  we  were  plowing  through  the 
broad,  dark-blue  China  Sea,  where  the  monsoon  blows  with 
its  strong  and  long-continued  blast,  and  the  more  terrible 
typhoon  exhausts  its  short-lived  rage  in  a  few  hours  and  yet 
in  that  time  strews  the  bottom  of  the  deep  with  wreck  and 
fills  many  homes  with  wailing  and  sorrow.  The  only  move- 
ment in  the  air  was  made  by  the  motion  of  the  ship,  and 
the  sea  was  as  calm  as  a  crystal  lake  in  a  summer's  noon. 
The  stars  shone  out  with  dazzling  brilliancy  and  the  reflec- 
tion on  the  smooth  face  of  the  water  made  a  heaven  below 
as  bright  and  beautiful  as  the  heaven  above.  The  pole  star 
was  low  down  towards  the  horizon,  but  the  pointers  in  the 
Great  Bear  high  up  in  the  heavens  showed  the  place  where 
the  North  forever  holds  its  throne.  The  sons  of  Arcturus 
and  the  princes  of  the  heavenly  host  were  circling  round 
the  pole  with  faces  turned  in  homage  towards  their  king. 
Wonderful,  infinitely  wonderful,  seemed  the  starry  heavens, 
and  their  mystery  of  depth  and  magnitude  seemed  so  high 
and  deep  that  no  mortal  mind  could  attain  unto  it. 


44  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

And  there  still  my  attention  was  called  to  the  brilliant 
cluster  of  the  Cross  more  than  to  all  the  rest.  It  is  com- 
posed of  four  stars,  clear  shining  and  well  set,  to  represent 
the  sacred  symbol  of  divine  suffering  and  human  redemption. 
No  wonder  that  mariners  look  to  its  rising  as  a  sign  of  peace 
and  goodwill  to  their  homes  on  the  land  and  to  themselves 
on  the  sea.  About  it  is  gathered  a  larger  constellation  of 
brilliant  stars  than  can  be  seen  in  the  same  space  anywhere 
in  the  northern  heavens.  I  looked  out  to  see  it  every  night 
from  the  deck  of  the  ship  on  the  sea,  and  I  even  thought 
I  could  sleep  more  calmly  if  I  went  out  upon  the  house-top 
or  threw  open  the  window  to  look  at  the  sacred  sign  before 
I  retired  to  rest  at  night  on  land.  In  countries  where  the 
Cross  is  little  known  it  seemed  an  especially  fitting  symbol 
to  hang  out  in  the  sky  every  night  to  induce  the  darkened 
millions  of  the  East  to  look  up  and  hope  and  rejoice  that 
the  day  of  their  redemption  draweth  nigh. 

To  me  it  was  a  peculiarly  suggestive  thought  that  the 
brightest  of  the  starry  host  were  gathered  about  the  symbol 
of  the  world's  redemption.  The  thrones,  dominions,  princi- 
palities and  powers  in  the  heavenly  places  were  set  in  glorious 
array,  like  the  twenty-four  elders  of  the  Apocalypse,  about 
the  starry  figure  which  calls  to  mind  the  most  astonishing 
and  satisfying  revelation  of  the  divine  love  to  man.  The 
highest  and  mightiest  of  the  princes  of  heaven  stand  gazing 
in  rapt  and  voiceless  contemplation  of  the  great  mystery 
of  the  divine  incarnation,  as  if  it  gave  them  such  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  mind  and  heart  of  God  as  they  had  never  seen 
before  in  the  ages  of  their  existence.  It  is  set  high  and 
resplendent  in  the  southern  heavens  as  if  to  say  that  the 


THE   SOUTHERN  CROSS. 


45 


work  of  redemption  by  the  cross  of  Christ  is  for  all  nations, 
and  that  the  isles  of  the  utmost  seas  may  know  him  who  was 
lifted  up  from  the  earth  that  he  might  draw  all  men  unto 
him.  That  sacred  and  glorious  constellation  shines  forth 
with  equal  brilliancy  upon  the  sea  and  the  shore  through  all 
the  changes  of  opinion  and  all  the  conflicts  of  nations.  To 
the  discouraged  and  the  wandering  and  the  darkened,  it  brings 
the  best  hope  and  it  shows  the  way  to  the  port  of  peace.  It 
shone  there  clear  and  serene  for  ages  before  Christ  came  to 
give  some  foregleam  of  the  brightness  of  his  coming.  It  will 
shine  on  till  all  things  in  heaven  and  in  earth  are  made  one 
in  Christ,  and  the  ransomed  nations  join  in  crowning  him 
Lord  of  all. 

To  me,  that  sacred  constellation  of  the  southern  heavens 
suggested  the  other  great  thought  that  in  the  infinite  ages 
to  come  and  in  the  infinite  worlds  of  immensity,  the  story  of 
the  Cross  may  be  told  and  millions  of  immortal  spirits,  that 
have  never  fallen  from  their  high  estate  in  glory,  will  wonder 
and  adore  as  they  hear  how  their  one  supreme  and  eternal 
King  once  was  crowned  with  thorns  and  crucified  that  man 
might  regain  his  lost  estate  of  life  and  immortality.  We  are 
told  in  the  sacred  story  that  the  crucified  One  of  Calvary  now 
wears  the  crown  of  heaven  and  that  the  stars  are  at  his  feet. 
And  in  that  state  of  supreme  exaltation  he  still  displays  on 
his  forehead  and  in  his  hands  the  signs  of  the  sacrificial  suf- 
fering borne  by  him  for  man's  redemption.  And  if  so,  then 
the  hosts  of  the  blessed  in  all  worlds  must  forever  look  upon 
the  mystery  of  the  divine  incarnation  as  a  revelation  of  God 
worthy  to  be  made  the  science  and  the  song  of  unwearied 
students  and  worshiping  hosts,  in  all  worlds,  throughout  all 


46  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

ages,  world  without  end.  I  would  not  dare  say  that  the 
sign  of  the  Cross  was  set  to  shine  among  the  eternal  stars 
on  purpose  to  teach  that  lesson.  But  to  us  whf)  are  saved 
l)y  the  Cross,  it  may  be  permitted  to  look  up  and  rejoice 
when  we  see  that  sign  in  the  most  ancient  heavens  and  we 
associate  its  significance  with  the  deepest  mysteries  of 
God's  universal  and  everlasting  kingdom. 

When  once  we  believe  and  confess  the  first  great  fact  in 
the  gospel  story,  the  divine  incarnation,  when  we  look  by 
faith  to  the  dying  Sufferer  of  Calvary  and  we  say  with  devout 
heart  and  thoughtful  mind,  "This  was  the  Son  of  God,"  then 
it  will  be  impossible  for  us  to  overestimate  the  meaning, 
the  greatness,  the  far-reaching  consequences  of  the  sacrifice 
made  by  Christ  for  our  redemption.  We  cannot  conceive  of 
any  mode  or  means  by  which  the  infinite  God  could  convince 
us  more  fully  that  he  is  mindful  of  our  need  and  that  he  is 
visiting  us  every  moment  in  kindness  and  tender  mercy.  So 
great  a  revelation  of  the  love  of  God  cannot  be  for  us  alone, 
but  it  must  be  made  known  to  all  worlds  and  it  must  be  the 
theme  of  wonder  and  joy  to  all  ages.  Believing  in  that 
revelation  we  just  begin  to  see  how  great  a  thing  it  is  to  be  a 
man,  made  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  a  little  less  than 
divine,  and  crowned  even  now  with  glory  and  honor.  Taking 
the  gospel  of  Christ  for  the  ground  of  our  faith  and  the 
guide  of  our  life,  we  have  the  highest  incentives  to  walk 
worthy  of  our  immortal  citizenship  in  the  redeemed  earth 
and  the  eternal  heavens.  In  the  full  blaze  of  science  and 
art  and  culture,  in  the  forefront  of  all  advance  in  knowledge 
and  riches  and  power,  we  may  still  count  it  the  highest 
attainment    in  knowledge  to  know  Christ,  and  the   highest 


THE   SOUTHERN  CROSS. 


47 


attainment  in  culture  to  be  made  like  him  higher  than  the 
heavens  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  Having  learned 
the  first  and  simplest  lesson  of  faith  on  earth,  we  shall  be 
ready,  at  his  call,  to  enter  into  that  other  home  where  we 
shall  see  him  as  he  is  in  the  glory  which  he  had  with  the 
Father  before  the  world  was. 

By  invitation  from  the  official  Astronomer  of  India,  I 
climbed  up  into  the  lofty  chamber  of  the  observatory  at 
Madras.  There  I  saw  the  electric  finger  of  the  clock  whose 
delicate  touch  fired  the  noonday  gun  at  the  same  instant 
at  Madras  and  Bombay  and  Calcutta,  and  so  regulated  time 
for  public  use  all  over  India  from  Cape  Comorin  to  the 
Himalaya  Mountains.  I  looked  through  the  great  space- 
piercing  tube  of  the  telescope  at  the  planet  Saturn.  I 
saw  the  double  ring  and  the  great  white  globe  poised  in 
the  center  of  the  two  without  touching  either.  I  could  not 
but  ask  myself  silently  the  question,  "  Whose  hand  held 
that  mighty  orb  in  its  place  without  any  visible  fastening 
or  support  1  Who  kept  the  surrounding  ringed  worlds  from 
falling  upon  the  globe  and  covering  it  with  confusion  and 
desolation } "  And  the  blazing  constellations,  rising  rank 
on  rank,  throne  above  throne,  in  numbers  without  number, 
seemed  to  answer  back  with  a  voice  which  the  soul  could 
hear,  "  God."  The  glittering  cross,  with  its  attending  princes 
of  light,  and  all  the  infinite  expanse  of  the  eastern  heavens, 
responded  with  the  glad  refrain,  "God."  And  the  very 
silence  of  the  immensities  of  space,  the  everlasting  order 
and  beauty  with  which  the  starry  host  kept  on  with  even 
march  and  unbroken  ranks  across  the  fields  of  light, 
repeated   back  the    ceaseless    proclamation   which    the    soul 


48  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

can  hear  in  its  silent  depths,  "  God  !  "  God  measures  the 
heavens  and  sets  the  stars  for  beacon  lights  on  the  infinite 
deep,  and  he  calleth  them  all  by  name,  and  he  marshals 
them  forth  upon  the  plains  of  immensity  night  by  night, 
as  the  shepherd  leads  his  flock  on  the  hills  of  the 
morning. 


V. 


HOLY    MOUNTAINS    AND    SACRED    RIVERS    IN    THE    EAST. 

TN  going  round  the  globe  one  can  easily  take  within  the 
-'-  compass  of  the  journey  the  great  mountains,  the  highest 
and  mightiest  on  the  earth,  the  holy  mountains  where  God 
came  down  in  thick  darkness  and  mighty  thunderings  in 
ancient  time,  the  calm  and  blessed  mountains  where  men 
heard  voices  from  heaven  and  saw  the  human  form  trans- 
figured in  the  brightness  of  the  divine  glory.  Lebanon  and 
Hermon,  Tabor  and  Carmel,  Olivet  and  Sinai  —  I  saw  and 
ascended  them  all  in  the  glow  of  the  morning  and  in  the 
gentle  light  of  the  setting  day,  and  I  was  glad  to  find  that 
the  scenes  of  sacred  story  are  so  much  like  hills  and  valleys 
and  high  places  which  have  been  consecrated  by  Christian 
faith  in  my  own  land,  and  that  the  people  of  the  Western 
World  need  not  cross  the  sea  to  find  holy  ground  on  which 
to  worship  the  Father  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  On  the  more 
familiar  ground  of  Europe  and  in  the  far  East,  I  saw  the 
snow-crowned  summits  of  the  great  mountains  reddening 
in  the  rising  and  setting  sun,  seeming  like  altar-flames 
lifted  up  in  continual  prayer  and  worship  from  earth  to 
heaven.  And  I  too  bowed  in  worship  as  in  the  presence 
of  the  Infinite,  when  I  thought  of  the  power  which  had 
lifted  up  those  mighty  masses  far  higher  than  man's 
intrusive  foot  has  ever  climbed,  and  made  them  fountains 

49 


50  MOKX/MG  LIGHT  I.V  MAXY  LAXDS. 

of  perpetual  streams  that  fertilize  the  plains  and  fill  the 
hearts  and  homes  of  millions  with  food  and  gladness.  The 
mountains  are  barren  and  cold,  but  they  are  sources  of  life 
to  all  that  live.  Without  them  the  fertile  plains  would  be 
a  desert  and  every  living  thing  would  die.  The  rice  plains 
and  the  palm  groves  of  the  Ganges  are  kept  alive  by  the 
annual  tribute  brought  from  the  icebergs  and  the  snows  of 
the  far-off  mountains.  The  clouds  that  bring  the  rain, 
when  the  whole  continent  of  India  is  grievously  tormented 
by  the  flame  of  the  sunbeam,  are  gathered  and  sent  forth 
upon  the  air  by  the  snow  mountains  a  thousand  miles  away 
from  the  parching  fields.  No  wonder  that  the  mystical 
mythology  of  the  East  should  make  the  mountains  the 
habitations  of  gods  that  utter  forth  their  voices  in  the 
thunder  and  send  their  best  gifts  to  man  in  the  flood  of 
the  fertilizing  streams !  No  wonder  that  the  extravagant 
superstitions  of  the  East,  in  glorifying  the  mountains,  should 
make  their  height  a  thousand  times  greater  than  the  whole 
diameter  of  the  earth  and  their  foundations  as  far  beneath 
the  level  of  the  sea !  No  wonder  that  the  worshipers  of 
the  powers  of  nature  should  build  their  altars  on  the  high 
places  of  the  hills,  and  the  saints  and  the  sages,  who  spend 
their  lives  in  meditation,  should  seek  the  solitude  of  the 
mountains  and  make  the  clouds  of  the  morning  and  the 
stars  of  night  their  companions !  Of  all  holy  places  which 
men  have  consecrated  by  offerings  of  devotion  and  pilgrim- 
ages of  faith,  the  mountains  are  most  worthy  of  the  name. 
And  the  intelligent  Christian  traveler  is  always  glad  to  bring 
them  within  the  range  of  his  journey. 

I  traveled   three   hundred   and   seventy  miles   north  from 


HOLY  MOUNTAINS  AND   SACRED  RIVERS.  51 

Calcutta  to  Darjeeling,  to  see  the  great  white  wall  of  the 
snow  mountains,  the  highest  of  the  Himalaya  range  and 
the  highest  in  the  world,  Kunchin-Junga,  Dhawalaghiri,  and 
Everest.  We  rushed  away  at  the  rate  of  forty-two  miles  an 
hour  till  we  came  to  the  Ganges.  We  crossed  the  sacred 
river  on  a  ferryboat  and  then  went  on  half  as  fast  upon 
the  meter  gauge  road.  Finally  we  came  to  the  foot  of  the 
mountains  and  began  the  ascent  upon  a  railroad  of  two  feet 
gauge,  darting  in  and  out  of  the  narrow  ravines  at  what 
seemed  a  rapid  rate  but  which  really  was  only  at  the  slov/ 
pace  of  seven  miles  an  hour.  The  road  company  wa.s. 
forbidden  by  law  to  run  at  a  greater  speed.  When  we  had 
reached  the  utmost  height  that  the  panting  locomotive  could 
climb,  the  mountains,  the  great  mountains,  rose  twenty 
thousand  feet  higher  still.  But  they  were  hidden  away 
behind  a  thin,  silvery  veil  of  mist  or  haze,  so  that  we 
could  not  see  them  on  the  evening  of  our  arrival.  The 
next  morning  we  rose  early  and  went  out  to  see  the  great 
sight  of  the  earth  reaching  to  heaven  and  leaving  man  far 
below.  But  the  veil  was  still  there.  We  could  not  see  the 
white  face  of  the  great  mountain  wall,  which  no  human  foot 
has  yet  been  able  to  climb.  The  next  morning  came,  and  it 
was  our  last  chance.  We  looked  out  early  and  anxiously 
for  the  great  sight  ;  we  almost  thought  we  could  see  it. 
Our  friend,  who  lived  there  and  whose  eye  was  familiar 
with  all  the  changing  aspects  of  the  earth  and  sky  in  his 
wild  home,  thought  he  could  pierce  through  the  veil  and  see 
the  awful  face  of  the  three  great  hierarchs  throned  among 
the  hills.  But  then  the  white  mist  was  so  like  the  white 
snow  that  he  confessed  himself  deceived  and  gave  it  up 
at  last. 


52  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Our  search  and  our  disappointment  reminded  me  of  the 
efforts  which  I  had  been  making  for  many  months  to  sound 
the  depths  and  scale  the  heights  of  Indian  wisdom.  I  had 
been  told  many  times  that  the  Indian  philosophy  was  deep 
and  high,  such  as  no  western  mind  could  attain  unto.  But 
I  humbly  thought  I  could  approach  the  brink  and  look  down 
into  its  great,  unsounded  deep,  or  I  could  stand  reverently 
afar  off  and  gaze  at  the  awful  and  inaccessible  heights. 
But  in  all  my  reading  of  the  sacred  books  ascribed  to  the 
saints,  in  all  my  study  of  the  philosophy  taught  by  the 
sages  of  the  East,  I  had  found  nothing  but  a  blind  and 
taffling  mist,  a  bewildering  haze,  which  left  me  only  to  con- 
jecture what  might  lie  beyond.  I  had  read  many  books 
which  gave  great  promise  of  things  hidden  from  common 
eyes,  too  subtle  and  ethereal  for  common  minds  to  grasp. 
It  had  been  promised  that  glorious,  transporting  revelations 
would  be  made  to  those  who  persevered  in  the  study  and 
followed  in  the  steps  of  the  sages.  I  had  done  so  before  I 
visited  the  East.  I  did  so  again  on  the  ground  where  the 
sacred  books  were  written  and  the  philosophy  sprang  into 
being.  But  I  seemed  to  myself  to  have  been  floundering 
through  bogs  and  fens,  sinking  deeper  in  the  mire  the 
farther  I  went  on,  or  to  have  been  climbing  up  steep  places 
to  get  a  broader  and  brighter  view,  and  all  the  while  I  was 
getting  into  thicker  clouds  and  deeper  darkness.  If  there 
be  any  wisdom  hidden  away  in  the  mass  of  contradiction 
and  nonsense  which  makes  up  the  contents  of  the  sacred 
books  of  the  East,  it  must  be  hard  to  find  and  not  worth 
the  search. 

I  do  not  reject  the  boasted  wisdom  of    the   East  because 


HOLY  MOUNTAINS  AND   SACRED  RIVERS.  53 

it  is  mysterious  and  incomprehensible,  but  because  its  claim 
to  mystery  is  false  and  affected.  Its  greatest  mystery  is 
that  it  has  nothing  to  conceal.  It  cannot  be  made  to  carry 
any  intelligible  meaning  except  by  putting  a  far-fetched  and 
figurative  interpretation  upon  language  which  was  intended 
to  be  taken  literally  and  which,  when  so  taken,  is  absurd  and 
ridiculous.  Any  truly  great  and  divine  revelation  must  have 
mysteries  past  finding  out.  Nevertheless  they  are  realities, 
and  the  more  we  come  to  understand  them  the  more  rational 
and  significant  they  are  seen  to  be.  We  can  believe  in  the 
reality  of  things  which  we  have  not  seen  because  we  have 
the  testimony  of  competent  witnesses  and  the  confirmatory 
evidence  of  revelations  which  we  can  understand. 

We  came  back  to  the  hot  and  sultry  plains  of  the  Ganges 
and  the  Hoogly  without  seeing  the  snow-crowned  summits  of 
the  highest  peaks  in  the  world.  But  we  believed  that  the 
mountains  were  there  as  firmly  as  we  should  if  we  had  seen 
them  with  our  own  eyes.  We  should  have  been  thought 
fools  or  madmen  if  we  had  insisted  that  there  were  no  such 
heights  as  Dhawalaghiri  in  the  world  because  we  had 
traveled  so  far  and  had  tried  so  hard  to  see  them  and  we 
did  not  see  them  at  all.  So  I  believe  in  the  reality  of 
things  that  I  have  not  seen  with  my  own  eyes  just  as  firmly 
as  I  believe  in  things  that  I  have  seen.  Others  have 
seen,  if  I  have  not.  Millions  have  acted  upon  the  truth 
and  reality  of  things  they  have  not  seen,  and  they  have 
found  it  safe  and  rational  so  to  do.  It  is  wise  and  prudent, 
it  enlarges  the  mind  and  uplifts  the  soul,  to  believe  in  the 
reality  of  things  that  we  have  not  seen  and  in  the  infinite 
importance  of  revelations  which  we  cannot  fully  understand. 


54  MOAW/jVG  iJGirr  rx  maxy  laxds. 

It  is  darkening"  and  debasing"  to  insist  that  we  will  be 
governed  only  by  our  senses,  that  we  will  jjelieve  only  in 
a  world  that  we  can  see  and  measure  and  comjjrehend,  that 
Ave  will  go  no  farther  in  faith  and  duty  than  we  can  be  led 
by  the  feeble  lamp  of  our  own  experience  or  by  the  touch 
of  a  hand  that  is  material  and  muscular  like  our  own.  We 
should  not  blame  the  Hindu  for  believing  in  things  above 
and  beyond  the  range  of  present  experience  and  observa- 
tion, but  for  believing  in  things  absurd  and  contradictory. 
The  faith  which  rests  upon  a  firm  foundation  must  agree 
with  the  soundest  reason  and  it  must  answer  the  deepest 
necessities  of  the  soul.  The  mystical  philosoph)-  and  the 
monstrous  faith  of  the  Hindu  never  did  either. 

I  saw  the  storied  rivers  which  millions  worship  in  the 
East.  I  saw  the  sacred  waters  to  which  devotees  from  dis- 
tant lands  came  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands  every  year  in 
the  hope  to  wash  away  their  sins.  I  saw  them  plunging  into 
the  turbid  current  and  coming  out  more  defiled  than  they 
went  in.  But  they  thought  the  water  holy,  and  thenceforth 
they  wore  the  rude  garment,  which  had  been  dipped  in  the 
stream,  as  a  robe  of  righteousness  to  which  the  gates  of 
heaven  would  surely  open.  The  devotees  of  the  Holy 
Orthodox  Church  of  Russia  traveled  a  thousand  miles  for 
the  opportunity  to  plunge  into  the  muddy  Jordan  at  the  sup- 
posed place  of  the  baptism  of  Christ.  They  carefully  rolled 
up  the  wet  garment  in  which  they  had  taken  the  bath  and 
carried  it  devoutly  home  that  they  might  wear  it  as  a  shroud 
in  the  coffin  and  be  wrapped  in  its  folds  in  the  grave.  I  saw 
women  dressed  in  the  finest  silks  that  eastern  looms  can 
weave,  glittering  with  gems  and  gold  as  they  went  down  the 


HOLY  MOUNTAINS  AND   SACRED   RIVERS.  55 

Stone  Steps  to  wash  their  hands  and  faces  in  the  water  of 
a  tank  that  looked  and  smelt  as  if  it  were  the  drainage  of 
all  the  sewers  of  the  city.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pilgrims  gathered  in  Allahabad,  at  the  junction  of  the 
Ganges  and  the  Jumna,  that  they  might  wash  away  their 
sins  in  the  doubly  holy  water  of  the  united  streams.  Many 
died  on  the  journey  ;  some  were  drowned  in  the  river  ;  all 
suffered  greatly  from  want  and  weariness  and  hardship  of 
every  kind.  One  day  four  hundred  of  them  laid  aside  every 
particle  of  clothing,  covered  their  bodies  with  the  vilest  filth 
they  could  find,  and  then  marched  in  procession  with  an 
English  official  riding  on  an  elephant  and  leading  the  line 
down  to  the  sacred  w^aters.  Their  hideous  and  disgusting 
appearance,  their  wild  cries  and  their  fierce  excitement,  made 
it  seem  as  if  all  the  madhouses  of  the  world  had  turned 
loose  their  inmates  upon  the  flat  of  ground  at  the  junction 
of  the  rivers.  Some  were  there  to  tell  the  infatuated  wor- 
shipers of  the  waters  of  a  Fountain  which  God  himself  has 
opened  for  sin  and  uncleanness.  But  the  blinded  pilgrims 
of  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna  looked  upon  the  herald  of 
glad  tidings  as  one  that  mocked,  and  they  drowned  his  voice 
with  their  continual  cry  unto  gods  of  silver  and  of  gold,  of 
iron  and  of  stone. 

At  different  times  in  the  course  of  my  long  journey  my 
movable  home  was  by  the  far  rolling  Danube,  the  strong 
current  of  the  Bosporus,  the  classic  scenes  of  the  Helles- 
pont and  the  Isles  of  Greece,  the  turbid  stream  of  the  Irra- 
waddy  and  the  Meinam,  the  Yang-tse-Kiang  and  the  Pei-Ho. 
On  a  previous  journey  I  had  bathed  in  the  Red  Sea,  the 
Dead   Sea,   and  the    Sea  of    Galilee.     I.  lapped    water  with 


56  MOKNING   LI G JIT  AV  MANY  LA. YDS. 

Gideon's  three  hundred  at  the  Spring  of  Harod  under 
Gilboa,  and  I  sat  by  while  the  women  came  to  fill  their 
pitchers  at  the  fountain  of  Nazareth.  I  had  crossed  the 
ancient  Kishon  and  camped  by  the  fountains  of  the  Jordan 
at  Caesarea  Philippi.  And  now  again  I  was  glad  to  enlarge 
my  sacred  geography  as  I  rode  beside  the  Cydnus  in  whose 
cool  waters  young  Alexander  of  Macedon  endangered  his 
life,  and  upon  whose  banks  Paul,  a  greater  conqueror,  min- 
gled in  the  sports  of  childhood.  The  morning  star  shone  so 
brightly  that  I  could  see  the  shadow  of  myself  and  horse  as 
I  crossed  the  Orontes  and  rode  away  from  Antioch,  where 
Paul  and  Silas  preached  the  gospel  in  love  and  parted  in 
anger.  I  paused  a  moment  and  slipped  down  upon  my  feet 
to  drink  of  the  spring  which  is  called  by  the  great  Apostle's 
name,  and  which  was  holier  to  me  than  the  muddy  tanks  of 
Benares  or  the  gushing  fountains  of  Daphne,  where  apostate 
Julian  revived  the  rites  of  a  worship  which  his  father 
Constantine  had  abolished.  I  camped  beside  the  ancient 
Euphrates,  where  the  Hittite  kings  dwelt  in  Carchemish 
when  the  terror  of  their  name  was  enough  to  raise  the 
siege  of  Samaria,  in  the  days  of  Elisha,  and  put  to  flight  the 
armies  of  Syria.  I  crossed  and  recrossed  the  Ganges,  the 
Jumna,  the  Indus,  the  Chenab,  the  Sutlej,  the  Djhelum, 
and  the  Godavery.  I  rode  in  a  boat  over  the  tops  of  the 
full-grown  millet  and  sorghum  on  the  banks  of  the  Pei-Ho, 
and  I  saw  the  pure  water  of  the  Po-Yang  Lake  come  down 
into  the  muddy  Yang-tse-Kiang  and  push  the  turbid  stream 
for  a  while  out  of  its  own  channel  and  then  at  last  lose  itself 
in  the  mighty  flood  of  the  great  river.  Everywhere  the 
rivers,  turbid  or  clear,  swift  and  roaring  like  the  Jordan,  or 


HOLY  MOUNTAINS  AND   SACRED  RIVERS.  57 

silent  and  slow  like  the  Nile  and  the  Hoogly,  bore  the  life  of 
millions  in  their  waters.  If  they  should  dry  up  or  cease  to 
flow,  millions  would  die.  And  the  traveler  must  be  very 
thoughtless  if  he  does  not  think  with  wonder  and  awe  of 
the  one  almighty  Hand  which  brings  the  waters  of  the 
ocean  from  afar  across  the  pathless  fields  of  air  to  fill  their 
fountains  full.  If  for  one  year  the  ocean  should  withhold  its 
tribute  and  the  clouds  refuse  to  form,  all  languages  would 
be  loaded  with  cries  of  woe  and  the  earth  would  become  one 
universal  grave.  To  save  the  nations  from  such  death,  the 
great  rivers  of  God  go  forth  from  the  sanctuary  of  the 
mountains  and  carry  life  and  growth  to  all  the  fruits  and 
fields  of  earth.  So  every  man's  life  is  held  in  the  grasp  of 
a  power  as  completely  beyond  his  control  as  the  gathering 
of  the  clouds  and  the  fall  of  the  rain. 

As  one  meditates  upon  these  great  and  marvelous  works 
of  the  Lord  Almighty  in  many  lands,  it  does  not  seem 
strange  to  him  that  blinded  and  brutal  men  should  worship 
the  stars,  the  mountains,  the  rivers,  and  the  seas,  when  once 
they  have  forgotten  Him  who  commands  the  stars  to  shine 
and  the  rivers  to  flow  and  the  ocean  to  enrich  all  lands  with 
the  abundance  of  its  treasures.  The  great  powers  of  nature 
are  so  utterly  beyond  all  human  control  that  the  ignorant 
and  the  superstitious  are  awed  into  worship  and  sacrifice, 
and  the  scientific  and  cultivated  talk  of  nature  as  if  it  were 
a  power  in  itself  independent  of  one  supreme,  all-ruling 
Mind.  And  yet  the  ignorant  and  the  debased  are  lifted  up 
to  a  new  life  when  they  look  upon  all  material  forces  as  the 
putting  forth  of  one  infinite  Will,  and  the  truest  and  most 
advanced  science  agrees  with  divine  revelation  in   bringing 


58  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

man  everywhere  into  the  presence  of  the  Infinite.  Both 
agree  in  showing  the  wisdom  and  the  power  and  the  love  of 
the  one  Almighty  Father  equally  in  the  life  of  the  smallest 
creature  that  lives  and  in  the  infinitude  of  worlds  that 
emblazon  the  midnight  heavens  with  their  glory.  And  one 
does  not  need  to  go  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth 
or  to  compass  the  globe  in  long  travel  to  learn  that  lesson. 
Every  blade  of  grass  that  grows  in  the  field,  every  flower  that 
blooms  in  the  meadow  or  the  garden,  every  snovvflake  that 
flies  through  the  wintry  air,  is  a  witness  to  the  presence  and 
2)ower  of  the  one  Almighty  Father  ;  every  whisper  of  con- 
science is  the  voice  of  God  in  the  secret  place  of  the  soul. 
The  people  of  the  East  have  yet  to  learn  the  first  great 
truth  taught  in  the  first  verse  of  the  Bible,  and  all  the  way 
through  to  the  end :  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth."  Some  of  them  say  that  neither 
the  heavens  nor  the  earth  were  ever  made.  All  things  that 
exist  have  always  been  and  always  will  be.  Others  say  that 
all  things  that  exist  are  God ;  they  themselves  are  a  part  of 
the  divine  nature  and  cannot  but  do  God's  will.  Independ- 
ent of  all  theories  and  philosophies  of  the  universe,  the 
common  people  of  the  East  make  to  themselves  millions  of 
gods  and  they  endow  them  with  all  the  exaggerated  imper- 
fections of  their  own  character.  So  neither  the  philoso- 
phers nor  the  common  people  have  any  proper  idea  of 
worship  or  trust  in  the  one  Almighty  Father,  maker  of 
heaven  and  earth.  When  they  receive  that  first  great  truth 
of  divine  revelation,  they  will  be  new  men,  and  the  whole 
meaning:  of  life  in  the  world  will  be  new  to  them. 


VI. 


HOW    TO    SEE    MISSION    WORK    IN    THE    EAST. 

OOME  travelers  go  all  the  way  round  the  globe  and  never 
* — '  meet  a  missionary  in  all  the  journey.  They  come 
home  and  say  they  have  little  confidence  in  reports  of  con- 
versions among  the  heathen,  for  they  saw  no  Christian 
natives  and  no  signs  that  the  people  of  the  East  are 
forsaking  the  religion  of  their  fathers.  Nevertheless  the 
journey  gives  grand  opportunity  to  those  who  will  use  it 
to  study  the  advance  of  the  nations  of  the  East  in  light  and 
truth,  and  the  signs  of  the  coming  righteousness  and  peace 
in  every  land.  It  was  for  that  especial  purpose  that  I  made 
the  circuit  of  the  globe  and  directed  my  course  all  the  way 
round  just  where  I  was  most  likely  to  find  what  I  went  to 
see  and  hear.  I  was  indeed  interested  in  the  historic 
memorials  and  the  great  works  of  art  which  testify  the 
greatness  of  former  generations  in  the  East.  But  I  would 
not  have  gone  so  far  and  given  so  much  time  and  toil  and 
money  just  to  say  that  I  had  seen  the  relics  of  the  bygone 
ages  and  had  satisfied  my  curiosity  with  the  journey.  My 
main  reason  for  studying  the  men  and  the  monuments  of 
the  past  was  to  see  what  hope  there  can  be  that  the  pop- 
ulous East  will  produce  greater  and  better  men  and  mightier 
works  in  the  future.  Some  travelers  seem  to  take  satisfac- 
tion in  sending  home  messages  that  missions  among  the 
heathen  are  a  failure  and  the  best  hopes  of  the  world  are 

69 


60  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

doomed  to  disappointment.  It  certainly  would  be  a  sad 
journey  if  one  must  bring  home  the  message  of  despair. 
I  went,  however,  on  the  long  journey,  resolved  to  look  on 
the  dark  and  discouraging  side  of  mission  work,  if  such  a 
side  there  be.  I  did  not  go  as  an  agent  or  committee  or 
secretary  of  any  society  or  organization  whatever.  I  had 
no  commission  save  from  Him  from  whom  all  can  receive 
the  highest  and  the  best.  I  was  not  bound  to  report  what 
I  saw  or  tell  what  I  heard  unless  I  chose  so  to  do.  I  went 
just  where  I  pleased,  stayed  as  long  as  I  pleased,  paid  my 
own  expenses,  and  came  home  when  the  Lord's  good  provi- 
dence brought  me  back  in  safety  and  in  peace.  My  most 
esteemed  and  excellent  companion  in  travel  was  as  free  as 
myself  in  his  choice  of  times  and  routes  and  modes  of 
investigation.  There  was  no  necessity  upon  us  to  agree 
in  the  impressions  we  received,  the  opinions  we  formed,  or 
the  conclusions  to  which  we  came.  Now  that  both  are 
safe  home  again,  neither  is  bound  by  what  the  other  may 
say  as  to  the  results  of  our  observations.  I  say  thus 
much  of  personal  matters  in  order  that  it  may  be  under- 
stood fully  that  I  speak  only  as  an  independent  witness 
and  that  I  have  quite  as  much  right  to  my  opinions  and 
impressions  of  the  work  of  missionaries  in  the  East  as  the 
self-styled  liberal  travelers  who  send  home  letters  about 
the  failure  of  missions  in  China  and  India,  and  who  say 
they  know  all  about  it,  when  really  they  have  never  visited 
a  single  mission  station,  never  talked  an  hour  with  a 
missionary  or  a  heathen  convert.  To  justify  myself  in 
what  I  say  in  this  book,  I  must  give  a  little  in  detail  my 
method  of  gatherinc:   information. 


M/SS/OiV    IVOR  A'   liV    THE   EAST.  6  I 

I  traveled  more  than  forty  thousand  miles,  and  I  kept  my 
eyes  and  ears  open  and  all  of  my  faculties  for  observation  in 
full  exercise  all  the  way.  I  asked  questions  everywhere  and 
of  everybody  who  could  give  information.  I  saw  personally 
more  than  seven  hundred  missionaries  who  had  made  it  the 
sacred  service  of  their  lives  to  find  out  the  thought,  the 
feeling,  the  faith,  the  hope  and  the  fears  of  the  heathen 
people  in  order  to  lead  them  forth  into  the  great  light  and 
liberty  of  truth  and  salvation.  I  did  not  seek  opportunities 
to  make  public  addresses,  because  I  went  on  the  journey 
to  learn  rather  than  to  teach.  And  yet  many  times  the 
opportunity  came  in  such  form  that  I  could  not  in  common 
courtesy  decline.  So  in  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
instances  I  gave  such  address,  sermon,  or  lecture,  as  I 
could  in  answer  to  kindly  request.  Sometimes  I  spoke 
to  students  who  were  preparing  for  the  ministry  in  colleges 
and  theological  seminaries  ;  sometimes  to  schools  of  boys 
and  girls  preparing  for  the  common  duties  of  life  ;  some- 
times to  companies  of  missionaries  who  had  come  together 
especially  to  hear  what  we  had  seen  of  Christian  work  in 
other  lands.  I  spoke  with  equal  freedom  to  heathen  and 
Christian,  in  the  church,  the  schoolhouse,  the  public  street, 
and  the  jungle.  By  the  help  of  interpreters  I  made  use 
of  twelve  languages  besides  my  own.  I  tried  in  them  all 
to  tell  the  people  by  public  address  and  afterward  in  personal 
conversation  what  wonderful  things  the  gospel  of  Christ 
had  done  for  our  own  land  and  what  it  would  do  for 
theirs  if  they  would  receive  it  to  the  heart  and  make  it 
the  guide  of  their  life.  I  made  special  effort  to  find  out 
whether  my  words  were  understood,  and  also  whether  I 
rightly  understood  what  they  said  to  me  in   reply. 


62  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

I  was  received  and  hospitably  entertained  by  missionaries 
and    people    of    every   denomination,   Congregational,    Pres- 
byterian,   Methodist,    Baptist,   London    Mission,    Church    of 
England  Mission,  Scotch  Assembly,  Reformed  Dutch,  China 
Inland    Mission,    Canadian     Mission,    Southern     Methodist, 
Southern      Presbyterian,    Wesleyan,     United     Presbyterian, 
Independent.      I  received  information  and   hospitality  from 
all  these  and  also  from  merchants,  judges  of  English  courts, 
officers  in  the  army,  presidents  of  colleges,  consuls,  foreign 
ministers,  members  of  council,   civilians,  and   business    men 
of  every  kind.     I  visited  the  native  Christians  and  heathen 
in  their  houses,  the  native  pastors  in  their  fields  of  labor. 
I  visited  and   examined  all    grades    of    schools,  sacred    and 
secular,    heathen    and    Christian.       I    asked    all    manner    of 
questions    about    studies,    discipline,    behavior,     proficiency, 
character,    and    results    of    instruction.      I    visited    hospitals 
and    I    asked    physicians    to    tell    me    faithfully   what    their 
profession  and    practice    had   taught    them    concerning    the 
social  life  and  moral  character  of  the  people  as   they  were 
under  heathenism  and  as  they  are   under  the   influence    of 
Christian  instruction  and  the  personal  presence  of  mission- 
aries among  them.     I  wished  especially   to  know  how  the 
converts  to   Christianity  are  regarded   by  their    own  coun- 
trymen —  whether  they  are  generally  thought  to  be   more 
virtuous,  reliable,  trustworthy,  than  they  were  before  they 
renounced   heathenism.     I  talked   with   men   in    hotels    and 
railway  trains,  on  steamships,  in  shops  and  offices  and  streets, 
and   I   asked   employers,  both   native  and    foreign,   whether 
they  preferred  Christian  converts   or  heathen  for  servants, 
workmen,  clerks,  messengers,  and  marketmen.     I  sat  with 


MISSION    WORK  IN   THE    EAST.  63 

the  judge  on  the  bench,  with  the  professor  before  his  class, 
with  the  physician  at  his  dispensary,  with  the  priest  in  his 
temple,  the  monk  in  his  monastery.  I  saw  the  Buddhist 
preacher  in  his  pulpit ;  the  story-teller  with  his  audience 
about  him  listening  in  the  street ;  the  fortune  teller  making 
grimaces  and  mumbling  incantations  in  the  market  place ; 
the  diviner  shaking  rods  from  his  bamboo  box  before  an 
idol  to  find  a  lucky  number  ;  the  astrologer  drawing  diagrams 
and  making  horoscopes  for  the  newborn  child ;  the  gambler 
plying  his  trade  in  the  sacred  apartments  of  the  temple  ;  the 
opium  smoker  lying  stupefied  and  oblivious  in  his  reeking 
den,  —  and  I  was  told  the  meaning  of  what  I  saw  and  heard 
by  men  who  knew  the  language  and  the  people  well. 

I  listened  to  men  who  ridiculed,  or  criticized,  or  con- 
demned all  methods  of  missionary  labor  and  who  thought 
it  sharp  and  severe  to  say  that  all  missionaries  had  better 
go  home  and  convert  the  heathen  in  their  own  country 
before  they  seek  to  make  converts  in  foreign  lands.  I 
heard  the  talk  of  men  who  say  that  the  many  denominations 
of  Christians  had  better  agree  among  themselves  what  are 
essential  articles  of  faith  before  they  undertake  to  teach  the 
heathen  what  to  believe.  I  heard  the  stories  that  have  been 
told  these  twenty  years  on  the  decks  of  oriental  steamers 
and  the  verandas  of  eastern  hotels  about  the  luxurious 
living  and  the  lazy  lives  of  missionaries,  and  I  traveled 
more  than  ten  thousand  miles  among  the  heathen  in  search 
of  missionaries  so  living,  but  I  did  not  find  them.  I  found 
hundreds  of  missionaries  wearied  with  work,  yet  rejoicing 
in  it ;  meeting  great  difficulties,  yet  overcoming  them  ;  sub- 
jected to  long  delays  and   hindrances,   and  yet  succeeding" 


64  MORXING   LIGHT  IX  MANY  LAXDS. 

at  last ;  suffering  unutterable  things  from  the  filthy  manners 
of   the  heathen   about   them,  yet    never    complaining.     lUit 
idle,   inefficient,  luxurious,   self-indulgent   missionaries   I   did 
not    find,  though    I  went    in    search    of   them    through    the 
length    and    breadth    of    India,    through    large    portions    of 
Burmah    and    Siam,  and    China    and    Japan.      I    saw    many 
zenana  women,   Bible  readers,   native    catechists    and    their 
teachers,  and  I  asked  them  to  tell  me  what  kind  of  homes 
they  found  in  their  visits,  and  what  they  thought  of  social 
life   among   the    Mohammedans,   Hindus,   and    Chinese,   and 
whether  the  homes  of  the  heathen  converts  looked  brighter 
and  happier  than  those  of  the  people  who  poured  water  and 
oil   upon   idols   or  burnt  joss  sticks    before    the    tablets    of 
ancestors  in  their  houses   every  day.      I   saw  great   numbers 
of  heathen  converts.     I  attended  their  churches  and  Sunday- 
schools  ;   I  heard  them  preach   and  sing  and   pray.      I   could 
not   understand   what   they  said,  but    I   tried   to   read    their 
faces,     their    behavior,     their    manifestations     of     emotion, 
which  are  the  same  to  people  of  all  languages  and  nations. 
I  saw   them   often   when   they   were   under   no    restraint    or 
impulse  from  the  presence  of  the   missionary,  and   they  had 
every   opportunity   and    inducement   to    act    themselves    out 
freely.      I    visited   a   great    many  heathen    temples,    shrines, 
sanctuaries,    holy    places,    where     often     the     devout     were 
gathered  in  great  numbers,  having  come  on  long  and  pain- 
ful pilgrimages  and  having  made  costly  sacrifices  to  answer 
the  demands  of  their  faith.     I  saw  them  at  their  devotions, 
witnessed    their    gifts    and    prostrations    and    sacrifices.       I 
inquired  of    those  who    could    understand    them   what    they 
said    and   what    was    the    meaning   and    intent    of   all    their 


MISSION    WORK  IiV   THE  EAST.  65 

worship.  I  made  myself  a  learner  everywhere  with  no 
theories  of  my  own  to  advocate,  no  preconceived  opinions 
or  prejudices  to  confirm  as  the  result  of  my  inquiries.  And 
I  must  have  been  a  very  dull  scholar  indeed  if  I  did  not 
learn  something  reliable,  trustworthy,  about  the  present 
condition  of  the  great  eastern  nations  and  about  the  prob- 
ability that  they  will  ever  rise  from  darkness  and  degradation 
into  a  truer  and  greater  life  in  the  future. 

As  the  result  of  all  my  inquiries  and  observations,  I  came 
home  with  the  decisive  conviction  that  there  are  signs  of  a 
great  awakening  in  all  the  East  and  that  the  time  is  drawing 
near  when  a  new  day  shall  dawn  upon  those  who  sit  in 
darkness  and  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death.  The 
great  missionary  enterprise  is  of  God  and  it  can  no  more 
fail  than  the  promises  of  God  can  fail  of  fulfillment. 
Already  in  all  heathen  and  Mohammedan  countries  the 
thrones  of  darkness  are  shaken  and  the  strongholds  of 
superstition  are  besieged  by  forces  that  no  power  on  earth 
can  resist.  The  walls  of  defense  are  strong  and  they  will 
stand  a  great  deal  of  shaking,  and  they  will  not  go  down 
in  a  day.  But  go  down  they  must  before  the  silent  shafts 
of  the  Prince  of  light.  They  have  been  built  for  ages,  but 
they  are  things  of  the  past  and  they  cannot  live  in  the  light 
of  to-day.  The  great  monuments,  the  gorgeous  temples, 
the  magnificent  tombs  of  heathen  and  Mohammedan  art 
all  tell  of  an  age  which  has  gone  never  to  return.  There 
is  no  sign  that  such  great  works  will  ever  be  repeated  to 
witness  the  power  of  a  false  faith.  I  counted  two  hundred 
Buddhist  pagodas  in  a  small  town  far  up  the  Irrawaddy  River, 
and  saw  thousands  besides  in  Burmah  and   Siam,  but   I  did 


66  J/OMA'/.VG   LIGHT   IX  MANY  LANDS. 

not  see  one  in  the  process  of  building,  not  one  of  the  many 
crumbled  and  decaying  which  men  were  engaged  in  repair- 
ing or  rebuilding.  All  over  China  I  saw  temples,  pagodas, 
monasteries,  Buddhist,  Taoist,  and  Confucian,  but  I  never 
saw  one  which  was  new,  not  one  that  was  being  built. 
I  asked  the  age  of  a  temple  in  Ningpo,  and,  as  already 
said,  the  priest  replied,  "  Tens  of  thousands  of  ages." 
That  was  his  way  of  saying  that  the  building  was  very 
old.  I  asked  the  same  question  and  received  the  same 
answer  in  reference  to  a  famous  bridge  at  Fuchau.  I  saw 
one  of  the  finest  of  pagodas  eight  li  from  the  walls  of  Peking. 
When  asked,  the  people  of  the  village  were  modest  enough 
to  say  at  first  that  it  was  only  six  hundred  years  old,  but  the 
next  moment  they  took  back  the  estimate  and  put  the  age 
at  twelve  hundred  years.  I  asked  an  old  resident,  who  had 
lived  in  the  country  more  than  thirty  years,  which  number 
was  nearer  right.  He  said  it  was  safest  in  China  to  take 
the  larger  number.  I  asked  him  if,  during  the  whole  time 
of  his  residence  in  the  country,  he  had  seen  a  Buddhist 
temple  or  pagoda  built  or  a  city  surrounded  with  walls  or 
any  great  monument  reared,  and  he  said.  No.  I  saw  one 
temple  to  Confucius  at  Nanking  which  they  said  had  been 
built  within  twenty-five  years.  But  the  open  courts  and 
corridors  were  overgrown  with  weeds  and  briars  and  bushes 
like  a  jungle.  I  found  a  pleasant  resting-place  for  three 
weeks  at  a  Buddhist  monaster}-,  or  rather  temple,  it  was 
called,  on  the  slope  of  the  western  hills  fifteen  miles  from 
the  walls  of  Peking.  There  were  eight  similar  temples  on 
the  face  of  the  same  hills.  All  but  one  of  them  were 
rented  for  summer   residences   to  foreigners  who   belonged 


MISSION    IVOKK  LV   THE   EAST.  6/ 

to  the  embassies  and  missions  in  Peking.  The  most  sacred 
and  consecrated  part  of  the  temple  where  I  rested,  the  holy 
house  which  contained  the  images  of  Gautama,  was  used 
by  servants  as  a  wash  and  ironing  room,  and  that  with 
the  full  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  priest  who  had 
charge  of  the  whole  structure.  It  was  named  the  "  Temple 
of  Everlasting  Rest."  It  looked  to  me  as  if  it  were  a  fit 
place  where  Buddhism  might  be  buried  in  its  chosen  and 
everlasting  sleep,  a  Nirvana  from  which  it  will  never  wake 
again. 

I  visited  the  rock  temples  of  Elora  in  India.  Two  miles 
length  of  a  mountain-side  facing  the  north  had  been  cut 
at  intervals  into  the  most  elaborate  cave  sanctuaries  for 
heathen  worship.  One  of  them  is  more  than  three  times 
as  large  as  the  largest  Protestant  church  in  America,  and  it 
is  all  cut  out  of  one  solid  stone.  There  were  altars  and 
shrines  and  sacred  retreats  for  priests  and  pilgrims,  images 
of  monkeys  and  serpents  and  gods.  And  they  were  all  of 
one  piece,  cut  out  of  one  ledge  of  solid  rock.  That  one 
temple  must  have  cost  enough  to  endow  a  dozen  colleges,  to 
build  a  hundred  churches,  to  educate  a  thousand  men  in  all 
the  arts  and  sciences  of  the  world.  And  yet  it  was  utterly 
deserted,  and  so  were  all  the  rest  that  the  workmen  of  some 
far  distant  age  had  sunk  into  the  face  of  the  mountain. 
The  altars  and  shrines  and  idols  were  without  worshipers, 
save  when  some  strolling  company  of  howling  and  crazy 
pilgrims  came  from  afar  to  make  the  caverns  echo  for  an 
hour  with  their  wild  cries.  Nobody  is  cutting  out  such 
temples  from  the  rock  in  India  or  anywhere  else  at  this 
day.     There  is  no  probability  that  such  mighty  monuments 


68  MOKiVIA'G  LIGHT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

of  superstition  will  ev^er  be  raised  there  or  anywhere  else 
in  the  world  again.  The  broad  kingdoms  and  fertile 
provinces,  which  once  supplied  their  most  skillful  workmen 
and  their  richest  revenues  to  build  vast  temples  and  carve 
colossal  images  and  celebrate  great  feasts  in  support  of 
heathen  superstition,  are  now  devoted  to  the  support  of  the 
human  family  and  the  increase  of  human  good. 

All  over  India  and  Burmah  and  Siam  and  China  and  Japan 
I  saw  monumental  evidences  of  a  power  which  was  great 
and  mighty  in  former  ages,  but  which  has  now  no  part  in  the 
great  moving  forces  of  the  world.  It  dazzled  with  its  mag- 
nificence and  it  deceived  with  its  falsity  in  a  past  age,  but  it 
cannot  live  in  the  light  which  is  coming  in  from  Christian 
nations  and  which  is  overspreading  all  the  East  silently  as 
the  morning  breaks  on  the  mountains,  progressively  as  the 
dawn  advances  to  the  full  day.  The  great  mass  of  the 
people  of  the  East  are  still  sitting  in  darkness  and  in  the 
region  of  the  shadow  of  death,  but  they  are  losing  faith  in 
their  old  superstitions,  they  are  beginning  to  see  that  the 
new  religion  from  the  West  comes  to  them  with  a  message 
of  truth  and  of  power,  of  life  and  liberty.  It  will  take 
more  than  one  generation  to  break  the  long  bondage  of 
ages  and  set  the  imprisoned  millions  free,  but  the  day 
of  redemption  draweth  nigh.  The  dawn  brightens  in  all 
the  eastern  heavens,  and  it  is  as  sure  to  move  on  to  the 
high  and  glorious  noon  as  God's  covenant  of  the  day  and 
of  the  night  is  sure  not  to  be  broken.  We  are  not  to  lose 
faith  or  slacken  effort  for  the  redemption  of  the  East 
because  the  promised  day  comes  slowly  on  and  sometimes 
the   night    comes   with   the   morning.      It    took  a  thousand 


MISSION   WORK  IN   THE  EAST.  69 

years  to  bring  forth  the  best  life  we  have  in  America. 
And  we  must  not  faint  or  be  discouraged  in  Christian  work 
and  giving  if  it  takes  a  tenth  part  as  long  to  bring  the 
multiplying  millions  of  the  East  into  the  glorious  light  and 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 


VII. 

GRAND  EXPERIMENTS  AND  GREAT  SUCCESS. 

*'  I  ^HERE  was  a  time  within  the  memory  of  some  now 
-*-  living  when  Foreign  Missions  were  looked  upon  as 
a  mere  experiment.  Some  were  sanguine  of  success,  some 
were  open  in  opposition,  some  wished  well  but  doubted 
whereunto  the  thing  would  grow.  The  conversion  of  the 
heathen  was  a  thing  to  be  desired  and  prayed  for,  but  few 
thought  it  likely  ever  to  come  to  pass  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  Christian  toil  and  faith.  The  onlookers  and  the  laborers 
were  equally  divided  in  sentiment  and  in  opinion,  and  the 
outside  world  ridiculed  or,  with  patronizing  pity,  said  it  was 
a  religious  craze  which  must  have  its  day  and  would  soon 
come  to  an  end.  Reviewers  and  newspaper  writers  played 
off  their  small  wit  upon  the  folly  of  sending  warm  blankets 
to  the  sweltering  islanders  of  the  tropics  and  shedding  tears 
of  pity  over  cannibals  in  the  ends  of  the  earth  while  the 
home  heathen  are  dying  at  the  door.  The  great  and  the 
honorable  East  India  Company,  a  business  corporation, 
the  richest  and  the  mightiest  that  England  made,  after  due 
examination  and  long  debate,  solemnly  declared  the  sending 
of  missionaries  to  heathen  lands  to  be  "  the  maddest,  the 
most  extravagant,  the  most  expensive,  the  most  unwarrant- 
able project  that  was  ever  proposed  by  a  lunatic  enthusiast." 
That  time  has  now  long  gone  by.     That  same  company  gave 


GRAND  EXPERIMENTS  AND    GREAT  SUCCESS.  7  I 

seventy-five  thousand  dollars  to  print  a  dictionary  which 
one  of  those  lunatic  missionaries  made  while  hiding  himself 
from  arrest  by  the  agents  of  the  company  who  had  been 
ordered  to  seize  and  send  him  home.  That  great  and 
mighty  board  of  directors,  who  ruled  over  more  millions 
than  the  Caesars  in  the  height  of  their  glory,  and  who,  in 
their  pride  of  place  and  power,  resolved  to  rule  the  kingdom 
of  God  out  of  their  dominions,  has  been  dead  and  buried 
more  than  thirty  years.  In  the  last  generation  it  could 
stand  against  the  world ;  now  there  are  none  to  do  it 
reverence.  But  the  missionary  enterprise,  which  the 
directors  stigmatized  as  a  waste  and  a  madness,  and  which 
the  wits  and  the  worldlings  tried  to  overwhelm  with  ridi- 
cule and  contempt,  was  never  so  full  of  life  and  power  as 
it  is  to-day.  It  never  was  advancing  so  rapidly,  never  had 
so  fair  a  prospect  of  making  a  full  conquest  of  the  whole 
heathen  world. 

Never  in  all  time  has  there  been  put  before  men  so  great 
an  enterprise  as  that  which  is  enjoined  upon  the  followers 
of  Christ  in  the  divine  charge  to  go  forth  and  disciple  all 
nations.  The  possibility  of  fulfilling  that  command  is  only 
just  beginning  to  be  seen  and  felt  in  our  day.  Many  who 
take  no  part  in  the  work  are  already  talking  as  if  they 
thought  the  thing  would  be  done.  Success  has  convinced 
the  doubting,  experience  has  taught  the  believing,  hard 
work  and  heavy  burdens  have  chastened  the  zeal  of  the 
sanguine,  the  growing  prospect  of  final  triumph  has  fired 
the  hearts  of  the  cold  and  calculating  into  fervor  of  feeling 
and  assurance  of  faith.  Continual  progress  has  been  made 
in  the  face  of  difficulty  so  great,  in  circumstances  so  varied, 


72  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

after  delays  so  long  continued,  that  nobody  now  thinks  that 
there  may  be  greater  trials  and  severer  tests  of  faith  and 
strength  in  the  future.  Nobody  now  thinks  that  any 
hindrance  can  arise  in  the  progress  of  the  work  which  has 
not  been  already  met  in  some  form  and  overcome  in  the 
past.  The  gospel  has  been  brought  into  contact  with  all 
grades  of  human  society,  all  depths  of  ignorance  and  degra- 
dation, all  extremes  of  savagery  and  superstition,  and  it  has 
proved  to  be  the  power  of  God  and  the  wisdom  of  God  unto 
salvation  among  them  all. 

The  proud  Brahmin  boasts  of  his  divine  descent.  He 
exacts  worship  of  the  despised  pariah  at  his  feet.  He 
denies  all  brotherhood  between  him  and  the  low-class 
coolie  who  toils  in  the  rice  fields  and  takes  poverty  and 
contempt  as  the  portion  of  himself  and  his  children  forever. 
When  asked  if  he  worships  the  gods,  the  Brahmin  proudly 
replies,  "The  gods  worship  me."  It  used  to  be  the  law 
and  the  custom  in  Travancore  for  the  pariah  to  go  seventy 
paces  to  the  right  or  the  left  of  the  public  path  for  the 
Brahmin  to  pass,  lest  the  holy  man  should  be  polluted  by 
a  nearer  approach  to  his  brother  man.  His  food  is  prepared 
for  him  in  secret,  lest  it  should  be  defiled  by  the  glance  of 
human  eyes.  He  eats  alone  and  in  silence  as  if  it  were 
an  act  of  worship  and  he  himself  were  the  god  to  whom 
offerings  and  libations  should  be  presented.  For  ages  he 
has  lived  his  life  of  self-adoration  and  walked  the  earth  as 
if  it  were  not  worthy  to  sustain  the  pressure  of  his  foot. 
And  yet  that  most  conceited  and  self-assured  creature,  under 
the  teaching  of  the  gospel,  has  been  constrained  to  own 
himself  a  man ;  he  has  learned  to  sit  at  the  same  table  and 


GRAND  EXPERIMENTS  AND    GREAT  SUCCESS.  73 

drink  from  the  same  cup  with  the  coolie,  whose  touch  he 
once  thought  was  pollution ;  he  has  heard  the  story  of  One 
who  humbled  himself  and  made  himself  of  no  reputation 
for  the  good  of  all,  and  the  proud  Brahmin  himself  has 
been  humbled  in  the  dust  by  penitence  and  exalted  by 
faith  to  the  divine  rank  of  sonship  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 
The  idle  Buddhist  withholds  his  hands  from  all  manner 
of  useful  work.  He  walks  dreamily  up  and  down  the  courts 
and  corridors  of  his  temple  as  if  in  sleep.  He  goes  out 
into  the  street  in  the  morning  with  servants  to  carry  his 
begging  bowl  and  screens  of  palm  leaf  to  shelter  his  head 
from  the  sun.  He  counts  his  silent  presence  at  the  door 
of  a  house  a  divine  visitation  to  the  people  inside,  and  it  is 
an  act  of  great  condescension  in  him  to  accept  the  gifts  for 
which  he  will  not  deign  to  ask.  He  does  nothing  for  the 
public  welfare  ;  he  denies  all  bonds  of  kindred  and  brother- 
hood of  humanity ;  he  shows  no  pity  for  the  poor,  no  sym- 
pathy for  the  suffering  ;  he  has  no  intellectual  aspirations 
for  his  own  improvement,  no  plan  or  purpose  for  the  relief 
of  the  misery  about  him.  He  considers  it  a  merit  to 
repress  all  desire  and  affection,  all  thought  and  feeling,  all 
interest  in  the  well-being  of  his  fellowmen  or  the  advance 
of  the  world  in  knowledge  and  virtue  and  truth.  He  con- 
siders God's  precious  gift  of  life  an  affliction,  and  his 
whole  study  and  effort  is  to  make  his  life  as  little  as 
possible  like  what  God  intended  it  to  be.  He  stifles  his 
intellect,  starves  his  heart,  degrades  and  dishonors  the 
mysterious  and  wonderful  work  of  God  in  the  whole  con- 
stitution of  his  being.  In  the  solitude  of  his  temple  he 
drones  out   endless   repetitions   in  prayer,  and   yet   he   has 


74  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

no  God  to  pray  to.  As  he  moves  about  his  monastery  he 
seems  like  one  walking  in  his  sleep  and  waiting  to  be 
caught  up  into  a  paradise  of  dreamless  and  everlasting 
slumber  where  Buddha  himself  sleeps  beyond  all  waking. 
Education,  art,  philosophy,  can  do  nothing  to  inspire  him 
to  effort  in  seeking  the  grand  purpose  of  his  being,  for 
to  him  life  has  no  meaning,  no  purpose  ;  there  is  nothing 
worth  laboring  for.  Ask  him  to  do  something  for  the 
people  about  him  on  whose  charity  he  lives  ;  he  will  tell 
you  that  they  can  have  nothing  to  do  better  than  to  serve 
him,  and  they  are  doomed  to  endless  transmigrations  of 
misery  in  the  world  to  come.  Endeavor  to  enlist  his  sym- 
pathy in  behalf  of  the  suffering,  and  you  will  find  that  he 
considers  it  a  merit  deserving  the  highest  commendation 
to  have  no  pity,  no  sympathy,  no  affection  for  anybody. 
Now  the  gospel  of  Christ  comes  into  contact  with  that 
dark,  selfish,  idle,  conceited  man,  and  he  wakes  from 
slumber  as  the  soldier  rouses  from  sleep  at  dead  of  night 
when  he  hears  the  drum  beating  the  long  roll  of  battle. 
He  is  no  longer  a  dreamer  walking  in  his  sleep  and  not 
knowing  the  darkness  from  the  day.  He  is  a  living  man, 
full  of  the  fire  and  activity  of  the  time,  animated  by  high 
purposes  and  immortal  hopes.  He  is  no  longer  a  drone, 
an  idle,  selfish  beggar  living  upon  the  labor  of  others  and 
never  thanking  them  for  their  gifts.  His  heart  is  touched 
with  sympathy  for  all  that  suffer,  he  is  ready  to  deny  him- 
self for  the  good  of  others,  and  he  finds  a  new  and  strange 
joy  in  effort  to  scatter  the  cloud  of  ignorance  and  super- 
stition from  the  minds  of  his  fellowmen.  The  gospel  of 
Christ  has  done  all  that  for  many  a  blinded  Buddhist  in 
our  day,  and  it  can  do  it  for  millions  more. 


GRAND  EXPERIMENTS  AND    GREAT  SUCCESS.  75 

Of  all  the  peoples  of  the  East  the  bigoted  and  fanatical 
Moslem  is  commonly  thought  to  be  least  susceptible  to  the 
spirit  and  the  power  of  the  gospel.  In  the  day  of  his 
pride  and  conquest  he  had  but  two  articles  of  faith  in  his 
creed,  the  Koran  and  the  scimetar.  The  nations  must 
accept  one  or  submit  to  the  other.  And  the  spirit  of  the 
followers  of  Mohammed  is  the  same  now  that  it  was  when 
they  flung  out  the  crescent  in  fierce  defiance  of  all  the 
world.  Theirs  is  a  religion  of  pride  and  passion,  of  con- 
quest and  cruelty,  of  submission  to  fate  and  subjection  by 
the  sword.  There  is  nothing  merciful  or  humane  in  its 
spirit,  nothing  fatherly  or  forgiving  in  its  God,  although 
every  chapter  but  one  of  its  sacred  book  is  given  in  the 
name  of  the  Most  Merciful.  It  is  cold,  hard,  cruel  ;  it 
degrades  individual  character,  it  crushes  out  the  life  of 
nations,  it  defiles  the  sanctuary  of  home,  it  stimulates  the 
basest  appetites  and  passions,  and  it  makes  the  countries 
where  it  rules  a  wilderness  of  uncultivated  fields  and 
decaying  towns  inhabited  by  a  hopeless,  false,  and  licen- 
tious people.  The  devout  Moslem  has  the  name  of  God 
ever  upon  his  lips  while  cursing  and  profanity  are  in  his 
heart.  He  sends  the  parting  guest  on  his  journey  with 
words  of  blessing  and  peace  while  meditating  on  the  means 
of  robbing  him  before  he  is  out  of  reach.  His  religion  is 
hard,  cold,  cruel.  It  has  no  element  of  life  and  growth,  no 
capacity  to  adapt  itself  to  the  changing  and  advancing  life 
of  the  world.  I  asked  old  residents  in  Northern  India 
many  times  whether  they  had  ever  known  a  person  to  bii 
converted  to  Mohammedanism  by  faith  in  its  truth  and 
divine  character,  and  they  all  said.  No.     And  yet  even  there 


76  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

seven  elevenths  of  all  the  native  preachers  of  Christianity 
in  the  service  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society  are 
converts  from  Mohammedanism.  Followers  of  the  false 
prophet  of  Mecca  have  learned  that  the  cross  of  Jesus  is 
mightier  than  the  sword,  and  coming  to  Jesus  they  have 
found  in  him  the  rest  which  Mohammed  never  can  give. 
In  a  church  of  more  than  five  hundred  members  I  found 
that  two  hundred  and  twenty-five  were  converts  from  Islam. 
The  spiritual  weapons  used  by  our  missionaries  in  preach- 
ing the  gospel  have  already  proved  mighty  enough  to  pull 
down  all  the  strongholds  of  Mohammedan  faith.  The 
prophecies  of  the  ancient  time  and  the  indications  of  our 
day  agree  in  giving  us  the  hope  that  the  cold,  cruel,  and 
crushing  sway  of  Islam  is  soon  to  end  and  that  in  all  the 
East  the  war-loving  crescent  will  give  place  to  the  peaceful 
cross. 

In  the  ancient  city  of  Damascus,  on  the  street  once 
called  Straight,  I  looked  for  some  memorial  of  the  house 
in  which  Saul  of  Tarsus  received  his  sight  after  three  days 
of  blindness,  and  where  a  new  and  more  glorious  light  than 
that  of  the  sun  shone  in  upon  his  soul.  I  desired,  if  possi- 
ble, to  stand  at  the  starting  place  of  that  great  career  on 
which  the  new  Apostle  went  forth  to  consecrate  the  cold 
intellect  and  chasten  the  wild  fancy  and  enlighten  the  dark 
hearts  of  the  heathen  world.  I  would  stand  on  the  spot 
where  the  holy  light  of  the  ancient  East  began  its  west- 
ward course  which  still  keeps  pace  with  the  journeys  of 
the  sun  and  which  grows  brighter  with  the  increase  of 
years.  After  eighteen  centuries  of  change  and  conflict 
there  was  no  trace  left  of  the  crumbling  walls,  and  there 


GRAND   EXPERIMENTS  AND    GREAT  SUCCESS.  77 

was  no  sign  by  which  the  site  of  the  house  could  be  known  ; 
but  on  either  side  of  the  street  there  were  broken  cohmins 
between  which  the  Roman  legions  marched  and  the  con- 
quering eagles  flew.  Down  deep  beneath  the  rubbish  of 
a  thousand  ruins  was  the  pavement  over  which  the  chariots 
of  Ben-hadad  and  Naaman  rolled.  In  the  windows  and 
doorways  and  arches  were  stones  which  had  trembled  at 
the  tramp  of  the  hosts  of  Cambyses  and  Sennacherib  and 
Nebuchadnezzar.  The  dust  of  the  footways  had  been 
trodden  by  Abraham  and   Elisha. 

I  turned  aside  into  a  crowded  bazaar  where  sandal-makers 
and  silversmiths  made  the  roof  and  walls  resound  with  the 
clank  of  their  tools  ^.nd  the  clamor  of  their  tongues.  The 
precious  things  of  the  "gorgeous  East"  lay  all  around. 
Diamonds  and  emeralds  and  rubies  shone  like  stars  in  the 
red  light  of  furnaces.  Dark-browed  men  braided  and 
twisted  and  linked  and  spun  and  wove  the  ductile  gold. 

I  ascended  a  stone  staircase  and  went  out  upon  the 
housetop.  I  then  passed  on  from  roof  to  roof  till  I  came 
to  an  open  space  between  one  house  and  the  next  as  wide 
as  many  of  the  narrow  streets  of  an  eastern  city.  With 
a  short  run  and  a  long  leap  I  cleared  the  chasm  and  went 
on  till  I  came  to  a  broad,  high  wall  on  which  was  carved 
in  a  curved  line  and  in  letters  larger  than  two  hand- 
breadths  this  inscription  in  the  ancient  Greek  language : 
"Thy  Kingdom,  O  Christ,  is  the  Kingdom  of  all 
ages,  and  thy  dominion  is  from  generation  to 
Generation." 

The  stones  which  bear  that  inscription  form  the  main  wall 
of    a  vast  Mohammedan   mosque.     The   letters   are   cut   on 


78  MORNING  LIGHT   IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  curve  of  an  arch  which  once  covered  a  lofty  gateway 
and  beneath  which  countless  Christian  worshipers  had 
passed  in  and  out  in  the  long  succession  of  ages.  High 
above  rises  the  slender  minaret,  which  the  muezzin  climbs 
five  times  a  day,  and  from  the  lofty  portal  of  which  he 
comes  forth  upon  the  narrow  balcony,  thrusts  his  thumbs 
into  his  ears  to  shut  out  every  other  sound  save  his  own 
voice,  and  sends  over  the  city  the  wild,  wailing  call  to 
Mohammedan  prayer,  which,  once  heard  by  the  Christian 
traveler  in  a  Turkish  tow^n,  can  never  be  forgotten,  "  God 
alone  is  God,  Mohammed  is  the  prophet  of  God."  Thus 
for  twelve  hundred  years  the  false  prophet  of  Mecca  has 
been  proclaimed  five  times  a  day  from  a  hundred  minarets 
in  Damascus,  while  the  dumb  stones  of  its  oldest  and 
grandest  mosque  bear  the  testimony  and  are  ready  to 
break  out  with  the  cry,  "  Thy  kingdom,  O  Christ,  is  the 
kingdom  of  all  ages,  and  thy  dominion  is  from  generation 
to  generation." 

The  explanation  of  this  singular  fact  is  easily  found. 
That  ancient  structure  was  built  before  the  age  of  Moham- 
med, and  it  was  occupied  for  centuries  as  a  Christian 
church.  That  sacred  inscription  was  then  fittingly  en- 
graven deep  upon  the  walls  both  as  a  promise  and  a 
prophecy  to  help  the  faith  of  all  that  entered  the  open  door. 
Through  the  ignorance,  the  indifference,  or  the  contempt 
(jf  the  Moslems,  the  text  was  permitted  to  remain  on  the 
outer  wall  when  the  Koran  had  supplanted  the  Bible  in 
the  pulpit  and  the  crescent  had  supplanted  the  cross  on 
the  tower  and  millions  of  scimetars  were  ready  to  flash 
out  in  defiance  of  the  old  prophecy  and  in  defense  of  the 
new  and  false  faith. 


GRAND   EXPERIMENTS  AND    GREAT  SUCCESS.  79 

The  streets  of  Damascus  have  many  times  been  stained 
with  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  of  Jesus.  The  fanatical 
followers  of  'Mohammed  have  many  times  sworn  upon  the 
Koran  and  upon  their  swords  to  blot  out  the  name  of  the 
Nazarene  from  the  city  where  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles 
received  his  divine  commission  to  bear  that  name  before 
kings  and  peoples  of  the  earth.  But  still  those  words  stand 
there,  in  the  oldest  city  in  the  world,  graven  on  the  walls  of 
its  oldest  and  grandest  temple,  to  proclaim  to  the  nations 
and  the  ages,  like  the  threefold  inscription  on  the  cross,  that 
Christ  is  King,  and  that  his  dominion  shall  endure  through- 
out all  generations.  The  day  is  fast  coming  when  that 
prophecy  shall  cry  out  from  the  dumb  stones  of  the  mosque 
and  shall  speak  with  living  voices  through  all  the  streets 
and  in  all  the  temples  of  Damascus,  and  Lebanon  shall 
take  up  the  cry  through  all  its  mountain  homes  and  the 
wandering  Arab  shall  make  the  wilds  of  the  desert  resound 
with  the  song,  "  Thy  kingdom,  O  Christ,  is  an  everlasting 
kingdom,  and  thy  dominion  endureth  throughout  all  gen- 
erations." 

There  are  more  Mohammedans  in  India  subject  to  the 
Christian  government  of  England  than  in  all  the  Turkish 
Empire.  At  Delhi  and  Agra  and  many  other  cities  of 
India  they  see  the  signs  of  the  greatness  of  an  empire 
which  was  once  theirs,  but  which  has  long  since  passed 
away.  They  have  no  expectation  that  they  will  ever  again 
recover  the  supremacy  which  they  once  held  in  the  East. 
Neither  have  they  any  faith  that  the  Koran  will  supplant 
the  Bible  or  that  the  crescent  will  ever  take  the  place 
of   the    cross.     In    the    Punjaub  multitudes  of   young  men 


So  A/OKiVLVG   LIGHT  IN  MAXY  LANDS. 

are  breaking  away  from  the  cold,  hard,  repressive  spirit  of 
Islam  and  are  preparing  to  take  their  part  in  the  onward 
march  of  the  nations  under  the  leadership  bf  Him  who 
trains  his  followers  in  truth  and  conquers  by  love.  Even 
in  Constantinople  the  Bible  House  stands  face  to  face  with 
the  Sublime  Porte ;  the  Christian  college  overtops  the 
towers  in  which  the  Turks  first  entrenched  themselves 
in  Europe,  and  wise  men  foresee  the  day  when  St.  Sophia 
shall  be  rededicated  as  a  Christian  church  and  the  name 
of  Jesus  shall  take  the  place  of  Mohammed  in  the  daily 
call  to  prayer. 


VIII. 

THE    MOTORY    POWER    OF    MISSION    WORK. 

''  I  ^HE  Chinese  coolie  works  all  day  in  the  rice  field,  half 
-■-  knee-deep  in  mud  and  water  ;  or  he  trundles  his 
heavy-laden  wheelbarrow  from  sunrise  to  sunset  along  the 
narrow  ridges  of  earth  that  take  the  place  of  roads  ;  or  he 
tugs  at  the  boatline  and  the  oar  against  the  current  of  the 
river,  naked  and  hungry,  until  the  evening  star  tells  him  it 
is  time  to  tie  up  for  the  night ;  or  he  bends  his  shoulders 
to  the  bamboo  pole,  carrying  burdens  that  task  his  utmost 
strength,  and  then  he  seeks  the  solace  of  opium  to  relieve 
the  gnawing  in  his  empty  stomach  and  the  pain  in  his 
weary  muscles  and  to  give  him  a  few  hours  of  forgetful- 
ness  in  sleep.  He  goes  on  using  the  stupefying  drug  till 
it  becomes  his  merciless  master  and  he  is  ready  to  sacrifice 
everything  he  has  in  the  world  to  buy  a  few  hours'  release 
from  his  misery.  He  gambles  away  his  last  cash  to  get 
more  opium ;  he  cuts  off  the  fingers  of  his  hand  for  some- 
thing to  stake  in  the  dreadful  game  ;  he  sells  his  wife  and 
child  and  himself  also  into  perpetual  slavery  for  one  chance 
more  at  the  dice  to  win  an  hour  or  two  of  seductive  obli\'i()n 
with  the  certainty  that  it  will  soon  be  gone  and  he  will  wake 
up  in  deeper  misery  than  he  was  before.  The  poor  wretch 
knows  no  other  life.  He  is  insensible  to  argument  or 
rebuke   or   entreaty.     No    threats    or   scourges    or   tortures 

81 


82  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

will  induce  him  to  surrender  the  treacherous  opiate  which 
gives  him  all  the  relief  he  has  and  then  leaves  him  in  a 
lower  deep  of  wretchedness  and  despair.  His  self-mastery 
is  all  gone  ;  his  will  is  as  weak  as  water ;  he  is  bound  and 
held  captive  by  a  tyrant  that  is  as  greedy  as  death  and  as 
pitiless  as  the  grave. 

The  divine  power  which  goes  forth  with  the  missionary  of 
the  gospel  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  touches  the  heart  of  that 
poor  coolie.  He  starts  with  a  strange  surprise  and  joy  as  if 
a  voice  from  heaven  had  bidden  him  rise  up  and  walk.  New 
light  breaks  into  his  dark  mind,  new  strength  is  imparted 
to  his  enslaved  will,  hope  dawns  upon  his  world  of  darkness 
and  despair.  He  is  a  man  again  ;  a  stronger  and  better  man 
than  he  was  before  or  ever  thought  he  could  be  when  he 
was  at  his  best.  He  shakes  off  the  chains  of  his  tormentor 
and  he  goes  forth  to  proclaim  to  others  the  liberty  which 
has  come  to  himself.  That  mighty  change,  that  complete 
spiritual  transformation  of  the  whole  man,  has  been  accom- 
plished many  times  in  China ;  it  can  be  accomplished  millions 
of  times  more.  And  there  is  only  one  power  on  this  earth 
that  has  ever  been  able  to  do  such  mighty  works  in 
behalf  of  the  lowest  of  the  children  of  men.  And  that 
power  is  engaged  by  the  covenant  of  the  immutable  God 
to  go  forth  and  work  its  wonders  of  new  creation  with  the 
preaching  of  the  gospel  unto  all  nations. 

Many  stories  of  actual  conversion  might  be  told  confirm- 
ing the  truth  of  the  general  statement  made  above.  Take 
one  as  given  by  an  eyewitness  whom  I  met  in  the  mission 
field,  the  largest  and  hardest  in  the  world.  In  one  of  the 
poorest  counties  in  all  China,  not  far  from  the  city  of  Amoy^ 


THE   MOTOR  y  POWER    OF  Ml  SSI  OX    WORK'.  83 

there  is  a  village  beautifully  situated  at  the  foot  of  a  moun- 
tain so  high  as  to  command  a  view  of  the  whole  surround- 
ing country.  The  little  low-roofed  mud  cabins  are  built  on 
the  banks  of  a  bright  stream,  which  bursts  out  of  the  base 
of  the  hills  and  goes  forth  gladdening  the  plain  with  music 
and  life  through  all  the  year.  The  streets  of  the  little  town 
are  narrow  and  filthy,  the  people  are  ignorant  and  poor, 
the  children  go  unwashed  and  naked.  The  ducks  and  the 
dogs,  the  pigs  and  the  puppies,  the  geese  and  the  swine 
claim  equal  rights  wnth  their  human  companions,  in  the 
mud  of  winter  and  in  the  dust  of  summer  and  all  the  year 
round. 

On  the  banks  of  the  stream,  a  little  way  from  the  village, 
a  small  farmer  cultivated  a  few  acres  of  ground  which  had 
descended  to  him  from  his  ancestors  of  many  generations. 
He  had  less  energy  and  endurance  than  the  average  of  his 
countrymen,  and  he  had  hard  work  to  keep  himself  and  his 
family  from  starving.  He  was  a  restless,  shrinking,  diffident 
creature,  with  not  enough  force  of  character  to  look  his 
fellowmen  in  the  face,  or  to  go  about  his  business  with 
mind  and  will  enough  to  do  it  well.  It  was  very  easy  for 
him  to  fall  into  the  seductive  and  ruinous  habit  of  opium 
smoking.  As  the  appetite  grew  upon  him  it  became  impos- 
sible for  him  to  get  enough  out  of  his  little  farm  to  support 
his  family  and  supply  himself  with  the  deleterious  drug. 
So  he  began  to  sell  off  a  few  rods  at  a  time  until  at  last 
he  had  so  little  left  that  he  began  to  balance  the  question 
of  selling  his  wife  and  children  to  satisf}'  his  craving. 
Before  adopting  that  last  desperate  expedient  he  resolved 
to  go  down  to  Amoy  and  try  to  start  anew  in  some   kind 


84  MOA'X/XG   LIGHT  IX  MAXY  LAXDS. 

of  work  or  trade.  He  had  no  faith  in  God,  in  himself,  or 
his  fellowmen.  He  had  no  conseience  or  i)rincii)le  or  manli- 
ness or  sense  of  right  to  inspire  him  to  effort.  He  had  no 
hope  of  ever  being  anything  else  than  a  miserable,  dis- 
heartened, utterly  abandoned  creature  till  death  should 
take  him  out  of    the  world. 

In  that  state  of  body  and  mind  he  came  within  hearing 
of  a  street  or  chapel  preacher  who  was  setting  forth  the 
simplest  elements  of  gospel  truth.  From  mere  idle  curi- 
osity he  listened  and  caught  the  meaning  of  the  words 
spoken.  It  was  the  first  message  of  hope  to  wretched  men 
like  him  that  he  had  heard  in  all  his  life.  He  took  it  so 
well  to  heart  that  he  sought  out  the  preaching  place  again 
and  again.  He  believed  the  word  of  Jesus,  and  with  that 
act  of  faith  a  new  and  divine  power  came  upon  him  like  an 
inspiration  from  the  Almighty  and  it  made  him  a  new  man. 
He  mastered  the  appetite  w^hich  was  dragging  him  down  to 
ruin.  At  once  he  became  eager  to  tell  his  fellow-villagers 
at  home  what  a  wonderful  blessing  he  had  found,  what  a 
free  and  joyous  life  he  had  started  upon  with  the  gladness 
of  immortal  youth.  He  hastened  back  to  the  place  of  his 
birth  and  the  lost  inheritance  of  his  fathers.  In  spite  of 
all  his  personal  disadvantages  and  all  the  discredit  which 
was  attached  to  his  name  as  a  weak  and  worthless  man,  he 
taught  the  truth  which  he  had  learned  so  effectually  that 
his  friends  and  neighbors  also  believed  his  message  and 
other  villages  were  eager  to  hear  him  tell  what  great  things 
the  religion  of  Jesus  had  done  for  him.  At  the  time  when 
the  missionary  told  the  story,  eleven  churches  had  been 
orsanized  and  seven  mission  stations  had  been  taken  and 


THE  MOTOR Y  POWER    OE  MISSION    WORK.  85 

occupied  as  the  result  of  that  one  man's  labor  in  preach- 
ing the  gospel.  The  churches  so  formed  chose  their  own 
pastors,  paid  them  well  for  their  services,  and  maintained 
the  ordinances  of  the  Lord's  house  with  order  and  pro- 
priety. The  power  which  made  that  poor,  ignorant,  half- 
demented  slave  of  opium  a  leader  of  men  and  a  competent 
teacher  of  the  highest  truth  is  the  power  which  is  enlisted 
for  the  conversion  of  all  the  heathen.  And  it  will  not  fail 
or  be  exhausted  till  it  has  set  righteousness  in  all  the  earth 
and  brought  light  and  liberty  to  all  people. 

Every  traveler,  in  passing  through  the  streets  of  Chinese 
cities,  falls  frequently  upon  groups  of  men,  six,  ten,  twenty 
in  number  seated  upon  the  ground,  listening  to  one  who 
stands  and  talks  to  them  with  great  freedom  and  animation 
by  the  hour.  He  is  a  story-teller.  He  recites  romances  of 
his  own  invention,  or  he  takes  up  traditions  that  have  been 
afloat  among  the  people  for  ages  ;  he  dresses  them  up  with 
additions  and  exaggerations  of  his  own,  and  he  hopes  to 
interest  his  hearers  so  much  that  they  will  contribute  a 
cash,  a  tenth  part  of  a  cent,  apiece  as  a  compensation  for 
the  entertainment,  and  so  he  shall  get  his  living.  He  makes 
many  gestures,  throws  himself  into  various  and  expressive 
attitudes,  stands  erect,  sits  down,  flourishes  his  fan,  distorts 
his  face,  clutches  at  his  queue  and  his  rag  of  a  garment, 
often  displays  much  skill  and  invention  in  devising  illustra- 
tions, choosing  the  best  language  and '  working  up  the 
stolid  minds  of  his  hearers,  who  listen  as  if  they  did  not 
hear  and  look  as  if  they  saw  nothing  to  look  at. 

Now  the  fact  of  the  story-teller's  profession  and  his 
power  over  his  rude  audience  arrested  the  attention  of  an 


86  MORXING    r.ICIIT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

ingenious  and  observant  missionary.  He  had  been  in  the 
country  for  a  long  time,  laboring  hard  to  find  out  the  best 
way  of  bringing  the  spiritual  truths  of  the  gospel  into  the 
unsusceptible  minds  of  the  Chinese.  Their  feelings  were 
so  stolid,  their  consciences  so  inactive,  their  modes  of  think- 
ing on  all  subjects  so  different  from  his  own,  that  he  seemed 
for  years  to  be  baffled  and  defeated  in  all  his  attempts. 
His  own  ideas  of  reason,  truth,  duty,  religion,  God,  heaven, 
endless  life,  had  grown  up  with  him  from  childhood.  They 
seemed  to  him  all  perfectly  plain,  reasonable,  easy  to  com- 
prehend. But  with  all  his  zeal,  culture,  ingenuity,  he  could 
not  make  the  conservative  and  conceited  Chinamen  see 
things  at  all  as  he  did.  He  had  gained  a  rare  mastery  of 
the  language,  he  had  studied  the  traditions  and  customs  of 
the  people,  he  had  mingled  with  them  freely  everywhere, 
in  order  to  get  at  their  innermost  thoughts  and  feelings. 
And  yet  he  felt  all  the  while  that  there  was  a  great  deep 
between  his  mind  and  mode  of  thinking  and  theirs.  In 
whatever  words  he  tried  to  convey  his  meaning,  his  hearers 
were  quite  sure  to  give  them  a  different  interpretation  from 
the  one  in  his  own  mind. 

For  example,  he  would  speak  of  God,  using  the  best 
word  he  could  find  in  their  language  for  the  divine  name, 
and  they  would  think  he  meant  the  material  heavens,  the 
forces  that  rule  in  the  material  world  of  nature,  the  stars, 
the  thunder,  the  sea,  the  storm.  They  would  say,  "  Oh, 
yes,  we  believe  all  that !  We  have  seen  God  many  times. 
That  is  all  right;  we  think  just  as  you  do."  He  would  go 
on  to  explain  that  he  meant  the  one  great  God  who  made 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  all  things  therein  and  who 


THE    MO  TORY  POWER    OF  MISSIOiST    WORK.  87 

gives  life  to  all  that   live.     And  again  they  would   answer, 
"  Yes,  we  know  him  ;  we  have  seen  him  often.     He  is  the 
middle  one  of  the   three  that  sit  in  the  temple.     We  burn 
joss  sticks  and  make  offerings   to  him   every  day."     Again 
the  missionary  would  speak   of  the  soul,  the    spiritual  and 
immortal  nature  of   man,  and  they  would  think  he    meant 
one  of  the  spirits  that  escape  from  the  body  at  death,  and 
that   must   be   propitiated   with   paper    money  and    material 
sacrifices  lest  they  come  back  from  the  grave  and    plague 
the  living.     Again  they  would  say,  "  Oh,  yes  ;  we  know  all 
about  the  soul ;  the  souls  of  our  ancestors  are  all  about  us. 
We  feed  them,  clothe  them,  honor  them  with   incense  and 
offerings    every    year.     We    could    not    live    safely    in    our 
houses,  we  could  not  cultivate  our  rice  fields  with  success, 
if  we  did  not  honor  the  spirits  of  our  fathers  and  see  their 
wants  in  the  other  world  well  supplied.     We  do  not  allow 
telegraphs    and    railroads    and    mining    operations     in    our 
country  for  fear  the    spirits    would    be    disturbed    in    their 
habitations  of  the  earth  and  the  air,  and  they  would  blast 
our   fields    and  kill    our    cattle   and   we    should   all    die   of 
famine."     Again  the  missionary  speaks  of  sin,  doing  aught 
that  is  displeasing  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  they  answer  just 
as  readily,  "  Oh,  yes  ;  we  know  all  about  that  :  it  is  missmg 
the  mark,  failing  in  business,  losing  health  or  property ;  it  is 
to  incur  the  displeasure  of  the  spirits  and  suffer  persecution 
from  them.     We  are  always  trying  to  avoid  sin.     We  draw 
lots  and  shake  the  divining  rods  and  consult  the  augurs  and 
the  fortune  tellers  and  the  astrologers ;  we  watch  for  signs 
and  omens  for  good  luck,  and  we  do  it  all  to  avoid  sin,  to 
find  out    the   way  of    escaping    the    consequences    of    sin." 


88  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Still  again  the  missionary  speaks  of  right-doing,  rectitude, 
holiness,  need  of  salvation  ;  and  they  make  answer  at  once, 
"  We  are  always  trying  to  do  right :  we  bring  offerings  to 
the  spirits  of  the  dead  ;  we  revere  the  ancestral  tablets  every 
day ;  we  reverence  the  aged ;  we  keep  joss  sticks  burning  in 
our  dwellings  from  morning  to  night  ;  we  carefully  observe 
all  the  rules  of  courtesy  and  honor  and  reverence  to  supe- 
riors. We  want  a  saviour  to  bring  us  good  crops  in  the  field, 
good  trade  in  the  shop,  good  health  in  the  house,  good  luck 
in  everything.  We  would  gladly  welcome  a  saviour  who 
can  do  all  that  for  us  and  for  all  China." 

So  whatever  words  the  missionary  might  use  in  their  own 
language  in  teaching  the  great  spiritual  truths  of  divine  rev- 
elation, the  Chinaman  had  a  meaning  for  them  all ;  but  it 
was  not  the  meaning  that  the  missionary  wished  to  express. 
Their  language,  with  all  its  copiousness,  was  never  made  to 
be  the  vehicle  for  conveying  the  spiritual  truths  of  the 
gospel.  It  is  cast  into  rigid,  inflexible  forms ;  its  characters 
are  tied  up  with  endless  and  complex  qualifications  ;  it  is 
with  the  utmost  difficulty  that  it  can  be  made  to  convey  any- 
thing else  than  the  hard,  material,  unspiritual  ideas  which 
for  ages  have  made  up  the  whole  range  of  Chinese  life  and 
thought. 

Beset  with  so  many  difficulties  in  the  way  of  getting 
access  to  the  Chinese  mind,  the  missionary,  who  w^as  not 
a  man  to  be  easily  baffled  in  anything  he  might  attempt  to 
do,  resolved  to  take  a  hint  from  the  story-teller  whom  he 
saw  every  day  plying  his  profession  in  the  street.  He  cast 
the  main  facts  and  teachings  in  the  life  of  Christ  into  the 
form  of  a  connected  narrative.     He  beeran  with  the  annun- 


THE  MOTORY  POWER    OF  MISSION    WORK.  89 

ciation  to  Mary  at  Nazareth  and  he  ended  with  the  resurrec- 
tion and  ascension  from  Olivet.  He  adhered  strictly  to  the 
gospel  record,  and  yet  he  made  the  story  vivid,  full  of  action, 
and  fitted  for  popular  address.  He  described  persons  and 
places  ;  he  introduced  question  and  answer ;  he  filled  the 
whole  narrative  with  life  and  action  from  beginning  to 
end.  The  simple  and  sublime  sayings  of  Christ ;  his  mighty 
works  done  for  the  good  of  men  ;  his  human  kindness  ;  his 
tenderness  and  pity  for  the  poor  and  suffering  and  afflicted, 
all    came  in  to  give  meaning  and    grace   to   the   sacred 

story. 

When  all  was  done  the  missionary  selected  a  Chinese 
Christian,  a  man  quick-witted,  susceptible,  and  fluent  in 
speech,  and  to  him  he  told  the  story  with  the  charge  to 
give  close  attention  and  be  ready  to  repeat  what  he  had 
heard.  All  the  education  the  poor  coolie  had  ever  received 
had  been  a  training  of  memory,  learning  to  repeat  the  names 
of  signs  which  had  no  connection  and,  often  to  the  learner, 
no  meaning.  So  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  him  to 
remember  a  vivid,  interesting,  and  connected  narrative.  A 
second  and  a  third  time  the  story  was  told  and  the  listener 
required  to  repeat  it  as  nearly  as  possible  word  for  word.  It 
was  enough  :  he  knew  it  now  as  well  as  his  teacher.  He 
was  then  charged  to  go  home  and  tell  it  to  his  friends  and 
neighbors.  He  lived  some  two  hundred  miles  away  in 
the  country,  and  he  must  make  the  journey  on  foot  and 
in  company  with  others  as  poor  as  himself  all  the  way. 
Home  he  went,  traversing  the  narrow  and  crooked  paths 
among  the  rice  fields,  crossing  the  great  plains  and  climb- 
ino-  the  low  hills  till  he  reached  his  little  mud  cabin,  which 


90  J/OA'A'LVG   LIGHT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

made  one  of  a  hundred  in  his  native  village.  He  had  been 
conning  over  the  story  on  the  journey,  and  when  he  arrived 
he  knew  it  better  than  when  he  started. 

He  was  now  to  try  the  effect  of  the  wonderful  narrative 
upon  the  minds  of  men  who  had  never  seen  a  missionary 
and  had  never  heard  the  name  of  Jesus.  He  was  like  the 
first  disciples  who  were  driven  from  Jerusalem  by  persecu- 
tion and  who  went  everywhere  telling  what  they  knew 
about  the  crucified  One.  True  to  the  charge  which  he 
had  received  from  the  missionary,  on  the  evening  of  his 
arrival  he  called  his  nearest  neighbor  into  his  mud  cabin, 
seated  him  on  the  ground,  and  said,  "  I  heard  a  good  story 
while  I  was  gone  down  to  the  seacoast,  and  I  want  to  tell 
it  to  you.  It  is  about  a  strange,  good  man  who  lived  in 
a  land  far  away  and  a  long  time  ago,  and  it  will  do  your 
heart  good  to  hear  about  him." 

So  he  begins  about  the  wondrous  birth  and  the  Holy 
Child  and  the  village  home  among  the  hills  of  Galilee. 
He  goes  on  to  the  opening  of  the  public  ministry  of 
Jesus,  and  he  weaves  into  the  simple  story  many  of  the 
gracious  words  of  the  great  Teacher.  The  listener 
wonders  at  first,  and  then  he  is  chained  and  delighted 
with  the  blessing  pronounced  upon  the  poor,  the  hunger- 
ing, the  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  and  the  peacemakers. 
He  breaks  in  upon  the  story,  and  says,  "They  are  good 
words  which  this  man  spoke.  Confucius  never  spoke  like 
that.  None  of  the  sages  of  China  ever  said  such  beauti- 
ful and  kindly  things  about  the  poor  and  the  suffering. 
The  greatest  of  our  philosophers  never  said.  Come  unto 
me,  all  ye  weary,  and  I  will  give  you  rest.     The  whole  land 


THE   MO  TORY  POWER    OF  M/SS/OiV    WORK'.  9  I 

is  full  of  the  weary  and  heavy-laden,  and  there  is  no  one  to 
give  them  rest.  I  wish  we  had  such  a  man  in  our  country. 
Oh,  if  he  would  only  come  to  us,  we  would  all  be  so  happy 
to  obey  him  !  " 

The  story  goes  on,  and  it  tells  of  the  mighty  works 
done  by  Jesus,  opening  the  eyes  of  the  blind,  restoring  the 
palsied  arm,  giving  hearing  to  the  deaf  and  speech  to  the 
dumb,  raising  the  dead  to  life.  Again  the  wondering 
listener  breaks  in  upon  the  speaker,  and  says,  "  Oh,  that 
we  had  such  a  friend  of  man  in  China !  Everywhere  the 
blind  are  wandering  about  the  country  in  darkness,  and 
there  is  no  one  to  give  them  sight.  My  poor  lame 
neighbor  has  not  walked  for  a  year,  and  nobody  can 
restore  strength  to  his  paralyzed  limb.  With  my  loudest 
call  I  cannot  make  my  old  father  hear  a  word.  I  had 
the  best  doctors  I  could  find  for  my  dear  boy  when  he 
was  sick,  but  he  died,  and  now  I  have  no  son  to  bury 
me  and  maintain  the  honor  of  the  ancestral  name  in  my 
family.  If  this  Jesus,  of  whom  you  say  so  much,  had 
been  here,  perhaps  my  son  had  not  died." 

The  wondrous  story  still  goes  on  through  all  the  teaching 
and  miracle-working  days  of  Jesus'  ministry.  He  is  made 
to  stand  forth  everywhere  in  the  narrative  as  the  helper  of 
the  poor,  the  comforter  of  the  sorrowing,  the  friend  of  little 
children,  and  yet  the  ruler  of  the  storm,  the  master  of  evil 
spirits,  the  conqueror  of  death.  At  last  he  voluntarily, 
silently,  uncomplainingly  submits  to  mockery  and  scourg- 
ing and  death.  The  poor  Chinaman  wonders  why  he 
should  do  that.  He  was  expecting  that  the  story  would 
end  by  setting  him  forth  as  a  great  and  mighty  king,  the 


92  MORAVNG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

lord  of  all  the  nations,  the  conqueror  of  all  the  armies  of 
the  earth.  And  yet  he  dies,  dies  the  death  of  a  defeated 
man  and  a  malefactor,  dies  on  the  cross  as  the  worst  and 
weakest  men  die.  The  grave  closes  over  him  and  his  ene- 
mies triumph.  The  poor  coolie  wonders  at  all  that.  At 
last  the  thought  steals  in  upon  him  that  somehow  this 
Jesus  suffered  and  died  for  him.  He  begins  to  think  he 
himself  is  not  what  he  ought  to  be.  The  story  about  that 
holy,  beautiful,  blessed  life  has  made  him  wish  he  were  a 
better  man,  more  like  the  meek,  the  mighty,  and  the  mer- 
ciful friend  of  the  poor,  comforter  of  the  sorrowing,  healer 
of  the  blind.  No  story  told  by  men  in  the  street  ever  made 
him  have  such  feelings  about  himself,  ever  made  him  wish 
he  were  a  better  man.  He  feels  saddened  over  the  death 
of  one  who  lived  so  long  ago,  and  in  a  land  far  away,  and 
somehow  it  seems  to  him  almost  as  if  it  were  the  death  of 
his  own  brother,  and  yet  a  brother  greater  far  and  better  than 
himself.  But  he  is  taken  by  surprise  at  last  when  the  story 
ends  with  the  resurrection  and  the  return  to  heaven.  The 
wondering  listener  goes  home  to  his  own  mud  cabin  to  make 
the  bare  earth  his  bed  for  the  night,  questioning  deeply  in 
his  heart  what  that  strange  story  can  mean  and  why  it  had 
such  power  over  him  as  he  listened. 

The  next  evening  the  man  comes  back  and  he  brings  two 
or  three  others  with  him,  and  they  all  want  to  hear  the 
strange  story  about  the  wondrous  Friend  of  the  poor,  the 
blind,  the  lame,  and  the  sorrowing,  who  appeared  on  the  earth 
a  long  time  ago,  and  in  a  land  far  away,  and  who  died  in  love 
for  all  mankind.  A  second  time  the  story  is  told,  and  the 
one  who  heard  it  first  is  more  deeply  touched  to  the  heart 


THE  MOTOKY  POWER    OF  MISSION    WORK.  93 

than  the  rest.      Ignorant,  stolid,  impassive  as  he  is,  he  drops 
a  tear  of  pity  at  the  last  bitter  cry  of  the  cross,  and  when 
the  resurrection  proclaims  the  triumph  over  death  he  shares 
the  gladness  of  the  disciples  who  rejoiced  when  they  saw 
the  Lord.     And  so  the  story  of  the  life  and  works  of  Jesus 
slowly  steals  into  the  hearts  of    the  villagers  by  constant 
repetition    until   they  build    a   rude    gathering   place   large 
enouo-h  to  receive  all  who  come.      They  learn  to  read  the 
cospel  from  the  sacred  page  ;  they  pray  together  and  smg 
praise,  and  they  gather  for  worship  every  seventh  day;  they 
put  away  lying  and  licentiousness  and  all  evil  communica- 
tions  out  of  their  mouths ;  they  learn  to  lead  lives  of  gentle- 
ness and  purity  and  truth.     And  when  the  missionary  comes 
to  see  the  effect  of  his  story  upon  the  minds  and  lives  of 
these  far-off  dwellers  on  the  plains  and  among  the  hills  of 
China  he  finds  them  already  far  advanced  in  Christian  life 
and  faith  and  duty.     He  gathers  them  into  a  sacred  brother- 
hood, named  from  the  name  of  Christ,  and  he  teaches  them 
the  way  of  the  Lord  more  perfectly  than  they  could  learn 
it  from  the  story  as  it  was  first  told  them.     In  one  province 
of  China  there  are  to-day  fifty  churches,  self-supporting,  self- 
tau-ht  in  the  word  of  life,  growing  constantly  into  greater 
usefulness  and  more  intelligent  faith,  and  all  of  them  came 
into  being  from  the  simple  telling  of  the  story  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  as  it  was  cast  into  popular  speech  and  taught  to  a 
single  Chinaman  by  the  missionary.     They  have  their  own 
preachers;  they  pay  their  own  expenses;  they  keep  gathei- 
inc.    more    and    more   of   their   heathen   neighbors    into   the 
household  of  Christian  faith.     At  stated  times  the  mission- 
arv  visits  and  confirms  them  all  in  faith  and  duty,  and  when 


94  MORXLVG  i.iGirr  in  many  laxds. 

he  has  finished  his  circuit  and  returned  to  his  home  by  the 
sea  he  finds  that  he  has  baptized  fifty,  seventy-five,  or  a 
hunchx-d  in  the  course  of  his  visitation.  All  the  while  he 
is  laboring  to  supply  the  growing  churches  with  better 
educated  teachers  than  those  who  at  first  could  do  noth- 
ing but  repeat  the  story  of  the  gospel  as  it  had  been 
specially  prepared  for  them.  Two  months  of  the  year  ten 
or  fifteen  men  are  kept  under  the  eye  and  daily  instruction 
of  the  missionary  that  they  may  go  back  to  their  village 
homes  and  teach  their  own  neighbors  the  word  of  life  and 
salvation. 

By  some  such  simple,  inexpensive  process  the  gospel  can 
be  preached  all  over  the  great  Chinese  Empire.  The  con- 
verted natives  themselves  can  preach  to  their  own  country- 
men better  than  the  foreigner.  The  very  limitations  of 
their  learning,  in  many  cases,  is  an  advantage  to  them  in 
their  work.  Knowing  nothing  but  Jesus  Christ  and  him 
crucified,  they  waste  no  words  on  theories,  speculations, 
controversies.  They  just  tell  the  story  with  the  spirit 
and  manner  of  men  who  believe  what  they  are  saying, 
and  so  their  hearers  are  led  to  believe  it  too.  They  can 
wear  Chinese  dress,  eat  Chinese  food,  go  barefoot,  live 
in  a  mud  cabin,  and  ask  no  pay  but  the  few  cash  which 
the  poorest  can  give.  Through  such  laborers  the  self- 
propagating  power  of  the  gospel  is  best  made  known,  and 
by  such  ministrations  the  truth  must  eventually  make  its 
way  through  all  the  great  heathen  nations. 


IX. 

WHAT    CAN    WE    TEACH    CHINA  ? 

IT   is  often   said  that  the   Chinese  are  the  greatest  and 
oldest  and  wisest  of  all  the  ancient  nations  that  have 
come  down  to  us  from  the  olden  time.     They  invented  the 
art  of  printing,  the  composition  of  gunpowder,  and  the  use 
of  the  mariner's  compass  long  before  they  were  known  to 
western  nations.     They  have  the  most   rigid   and   effective 
civil    service;    they   set   the  highest    estimate   upon    educa- 
tion ;  they  have  the  most  profound  reverence  for  age  and 
dignity  and  parentage  ;  they  excel  all  other  people  in  agri- 
culture, in  domestic  economy,  and  in  the  capacity  to  make 
the  most  out  of  the  smallest  means  of  living.     They  have 
kept  their  language,  their  laws,  and  their  religion  unchanged 
for  thousands  of  years,  while  thrones  have  been  cast  down, 
mighty    empires    have    been     broken    in    pieces,   and    the 
whole    order  of    society   and   opinion   and   custom    in   other 
lands  has  been  overthrown. 

In  all  such  statements  there  is  a  grain  of  truth  and  a 
o-reat  amount  of  chaff.  For  the  most  part  the  Chinese 
themselves  never  know  the  meaning  or  value  of  their 
inventions,  or  indeed  that  they  were  any  inventions  at 
all.  It  has  taken  western  nations  to  show  them  the  germ 
of  power  and  expansion  which  was  hidden  in  their  most 
ingenious    arts,    and    they   knew    it    not.       Their    political 

95 


g6  MOKiVLYG  LIGHT  IN  MAXY  I.AXDS. 

system,  which  is  best  in  theory,  is  basest  and  blindest 
in  application ;  their  learning  is  the  laborious  acquisition 
of  things  not  worth  knowing ;  their  reverence  is  the 
worship  of  things  baser  than  themselves ;  their  social 
order  is  blind  obedience  to  custom,  and  their  economy 
springs  from  the  cruel  compulsion  of  poverty.  However 
old  and  numerous  such  a  people  may  be,  however  proud  of 
their  history  and  tenacious  of  their  traditions,  we  ought  to 
be  able  to  teach  them  the  first  princijiles  of  a  better  faith 
and  the  beginnings  of  a  new  and  higher  life. 

We  can  teach  the  Chinese  first  of  all  to  believe  in  the 
one  almighty  and  ever-living  God,  the  Father  of  infinite 
mercies,  the  Giver  of  every  good  and  perfect  gift,  who  pours 
out  his  heart  toward  his  earthly  children  with  the  tender- 
ness of  parental  affection  and  with  the  constancy  of  immu- 
table law.  The  Chinese  believe  in  the  material  heavens,  in 
the  blind  forces  of  nature,  in  the  caprices  of  fortune,  in  the 
decrees  of  destiny,  in  the  foreordinations  of  mysterious  and 
merciless  fate.  But  the  conceited  and  self-assured  disciples 
of  Confucius  and  the  devout  students  in  the  dreamy  dia- 
lectics of  Buddha  know  nothing  of  one  infinite,  eternal, 
ever-present  God,  whose  home  is  with  the  humble  and 
whose  help  may  be  had  by  all  who  call  upon  him  in  sin- 
cerity and   in  truth. 

The  Chinaman  prays,  but  it  is  unto  the  material  heavens 
that  cannot  hear;  unto  the  clouds  that  heed  not  his  cry; 
unto  the  seasons  of  the  year  that  never  vary  their  annual 
round  ;  unto  the  great  powers  and  elemental  forces  of 
nature  that  have  no  soul ;  unto  the  winds  that  blow  where 
they   list ;    unto    the    storms    that    rage    on    sea    and    land ; 


WHAT   CAN    WE    TEACH   CHINA? 


97 


unto  the  sunlight  that  shines  and  the  rain  that  falls  alike 
for  the  evil  and  the  good.  Unto  such  he  prays,  as  if  one 
should  stand  on  the  shore  and  entreat  the  tides  not  to 
rise,  or  look  up  to  the  brazen  heavens  in  time  of  drought 
and  implore  the  sun  to  withhold  his  heat. 

The  Chinaman  prays  to  the  powers  of  nature  but  not  to 
the  One  who  holds  the  powers  of  nature  in  his  hand.  In 
the  time  of  trouble,  under  the  affliction  of  famine  or  fever 
or  flood  or  war,  he  makes  offerings  ;  he  burns  incense  ;  he 
leads  long  processions  through  the  streets  ;  he  brings  out 
grand  and  noisy  dramatic  representations  ;  he  bows  to  the 
earth  and  knocks  his  forehead  upon  the  stone  pavement  in 
the  presence  of  grim  idols  ;  he  makes  temples  and  tombs 
resound  with  chants  and  wailings ;  he  beats  drums  and 
blows  trumpets  and  calls  aloud  upon  the  spirits  of  the 
earth,  the  water,  and  the  air.  And  he  does  all  that  to  pro- 
pitiate the  angry  powers  that  afflict  him  with  fever  in  the 
house  or  murrain  in  the  flock  or  blight  in  the  field.  If  the 
rain  comes  when  he  brings  offerings  to  the  thunder  god 
in  the  temple,  then  he  thinks  the  pitying  heavens  have 
heard  his  prayer.  If  the  fever  abates  when  he  has  made 
night  hideous  with  ghostly  masks  of  demons  and  noisy 
processions,  then  he  thinks  the  cruel  power  that  poisons 
the  air  has  ceased  to  breathe  upon  the  people.  If  the 
famine  no  longer  fills  the  streets  and  highways  with  the 
starving  multitudes,  then  he  says  that  the  spirits  that  rule 
the  clouds,  the  hills,  and  the  stars  have  heard  his  cry  and 
they  no  longer  dry  up  the  fountains  or  burn  the  fields 
with  drought. 

So    while    the    Chinaman    recognizes    the    existence   of  a 


98  MOKXING   LIGHT  IX  MAXY  LAXDS. 

power  above  and  beyond  his  control,  his  prayers  arc  not 
to  an  all-loving  Father  ;  his  offerings  are  not  an  expression 
of  trust  and  love  such  as  is  due  to  one  ever-living  and  per- 
sonal God.  He  feels  that  the  earth,  the  air,  and  the 
heavens  about  him  are  filled  with  mighty  and  mysterious 
powers  which  are  envious  of  his  happiness  and  unwilling 
to  show  him  sympathy  or  give  him  help  in  his  affliction. 
All  his  prayers,  offerings,  and  sacrifices  are  to  beings  sup- 
posed to  be  angry  and  unwilling  to  be  propitiated.  He 
spends  millions  and  millions  of  money  every  year  in  sacri- 
fices to  powers  that  have  no  mind  or  soul  and  to  beings 
that  have  no  existence.  He  needs  to  learn  first  of  all  that 
the  one  supreme  power  of  the  universe  is  not  a  blind  force 
as  unfeeling  as  gravitation,  not  a  law  as  mindless  and  merci- 
less as  the  storm.  He  needs  to  know  that  the  conditions 
of  his  life  in  this  world  are  not  happenings  of  chance  or 
decrees  of  destiny.  The  ignorant  can  never  be  set  free  from 
fears  and  superstitions,  the  educated  can  never  be  estab- 
lished either  in  faith  or  in  philosophy,  until  they  are  brought 
to  recognize  the  will  of  one  great  and  good  Father  in  all 
the  conditions  and  experiences  of  life.  From  him  come  all 
chastisements  and  afflictions  as  well  as  all  riches  and  pros- 
perity, and  he  sends  both  equally  in  love  to  draw  the  hearts 
of  his  earthly  children  in  trust  and  gratitude  to  himself  as- 
the  sole,  supreme,  infinite,  and  eternal  Good.  He  must  be 
made  to  see  that  the  one  supreme  power  which  guides  the 
sun  and  the  stars  in  their  courses  and  makes  the  seasons 
maintain  their  annual  and  beneficent  round,  is  the  will  of 
his  greatest,  best,  most  generous  Friend,  and  that  Friend 
has  given  his  greatest  and  best  gift  to  win  men  back  from 


WHAT   CA.V    IV E    TEACH   CHINA?  99 

their   evil,    wandering,  and  ungrateful  lives  and    prevail    on 
them  to  return  in  love  and  duty  to  their  Father. 

The  Chinaman  does  not  know  that.  It  is  very  hard  to 
make  him  believe  it  when  he  hears  it  for  the  first  time. 
When  he  has  heard  it  for  the  hundredth  time  repeated  by 
intelligent  and  trustworthy  teachers,  he  is  apt  to  think  it  a 
dream  of  a  strange,  fanatical,  foreign  people,  who  do  not 
know  what  they  are  talking  about  when  they  tell  him  such 
things  about  God.  With  all  his  cunning  and  conceit,  with 
all  his  pride  of  ancestry  and  wide  dominion  and  imperial 
power,  he  does  not  know,  or  knowing,  dares  not  believe, 
the  one  supreme  fact  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all 
science  and  which  is  the  source  and  fountain  head  of  all 
reasonable  faith.  To  him  all  people  are  barbarians  in  com- 
parison with  his  own  ;  he  thinks  no  land  worth  living  in, 
none  fit  to  be  buried  in,  save  his  own  Central  Flowery  King- 
dom. The  laws  and  the  literature  of  his  own  language  are 
divine  ;  he  is  unwilling  to  be  drawn  out  of  his  narrow  self- 
conceit  into  the  great  brotherhood  of  humanity  ;  it  is  the 
greatest  confession  for  him  to  make  when  he  reads  the 
simple  story  of  the  gospel  and  he  feels  compelled  to  say, 
"A  greater  than  Confucius  is  here."  He  is  very  practical 
and  businesslike  in  his  habits,  very  strongly  set  in  his  own 
way,  however  absurd  and  foolish  that  way  may  be.  He  has 
great  contempt  for  all  people  who  come  from  far-off  lands 
tt»  teach  him  anything,  as  if  he  were  not  already  the 
embodiment  of  wisdom  and  the  head  of  the  human  race. 
Conflict  with  the  power  of  Christian  nations  has  done 
something  to  take  the  conceit  out  of  him.  But  he  is  a 
Chinaman  still ;  bound  in  hard  service  to  the  souls   of   his 


lOO  MORiVLVG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

ancestors;  haunted  and  plagued  b)'  the  spirits  of  the  power 
of  the  air;  trying  in  vain  to  make  peace  with  the  unpitying 
heavens  and  the  unmotherly  earth. 

The  Chinaman's  first  step  out  of  bondage,  his  first  lesson 
in  true  wisdom,  his  first  act  of  rational  faith,  must  be  belief 
in  the  one  ever-living  and  almighty  God,  faith  in  the  fatherly 
kindness  and  personal  care  of  the  one  Being  whose  will  is 
the  moving  force  in  all  the  powers  of  nature,  and  whose 
heart  is  full  of  tenderness  and  pity  towards  all  his  earthly 
children.  That  one  first  act  of  faith  will  be  the  beginnino; 
of  an  intellectual  and  spiritual  education,  which  will  correct 
his  mistakes  about  the  material  world,  dismiss  his  dread  of 
spirits  and  demons,  give  him  something  higher  than  the 
forms  and  phenomena  of  nature  to  worship,  devise  the  best 
employment  for  all  his  faculties,  and  fill  his  great  land  with 
voices  of  praise  and  thanksgiving. 

The  Chinaman's  ideas  about  God  are  local  and  material, 
confused  and  contradictory.  Whatever  name  is  used  for  the 
supreme  Being,  he  thinks  he  knows  all  about  it,  and  yet  he 
knows  nothing  as  he  ought  to  know.  The  name  only  sug- 
gests to  him  some  image  that  he  has  seen  in  the  Buddhist 
temple,  or  some  picture  of  a  many-headed  and  many-handed 
monster  that  he  has  seen  carried  in  a  sacred  procession,  or 
some  fabulous  being  that  he  has  been  told  dwelt  on  a  moun- 
tain or  by  the  sea  in  the  olden  time,  or  some  venerable  sage 
who  spoke  words  of  wisdom  for  many  years  while  he  lived 
on  the  earth,  and  then  passed  away  into  the  heavens,  and 
was  worshiped  by  men  who  revered  wisdom  and  set  up 
altars  to  sages.  It  takes  a  long  time  and  many  explanations 
and  much  patience  to  get  the  Chinaman  to  understand  and 


WHAT   CAN  WE    TEACH   CHIXA?  lOI 

accept  the  simple  idea  of  God  as  it  is  set  forth  in  the  Bible 
and  as  it  is  accepted  by  all  followers  of  Christ.  It  takes 
him  still  longer  to  comprehend  the  one  supreme  fact  of  the 
gospel  :  God  loving  the  world  and  giving  his  Son,  his  great- 
est and  best  gift,  for  the  world's  redemption.  When  the 
Chinaman  gets  firm  hold  of  that  great  fact  in  the  Christian 
revelation,  when  he  accepts  it  and  lives  by  it  as  a  principle 
of  living  faith,  it  will  make  him  a  new  man  and  his  nation  a 
new  people.  It  has  taken  three  thousand  years  of  oppres- 
sion and  ignorance  and  superstition  to  make  the  Chinaman 
what  he  is  to-day.  Give  him  one  hundred  years  of  light  and 
liberty,  and  he  will  stand  with  the  foremost  in  the  advance 
of  nations.  And  when  he  awakes  from  the  sleep  of  ages,  it 
will  be  the  awaking  of  a  giant  who  rejoices  to  run  in  the 
race  with  the  swiftest  and  to  contend  in  strength  with  the 
strongest.  Let  the  millions  of  China  receive  the  gospel 
and  they  will  fill  the  earth  with  missionaries,  and  in  every 
land  they  will  testify  to  the  quickening  and  regenerating 
power  of  the  religion  taught  in  the  Bible. 

When  the  traveler  from  the  new  world  of  the  West  sets 
his  face  homeward  and  leaves  the  old  lands  of  the  East 
behind,  he  looks  back  upon  China  as  more  than  all  the  rest 
the  land  of  mystery  and  contradiction.  The  people  seem  to 
him  to  have  brought  into  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ 
the  pride  and  the  power,  the  ignorance  and  the  superstition 
of  the  great  nations  of  the  nineteenth  century  before  Christ. 
He  looks  upon  them  as  if  they  had  been  preserved  un- 
changed through  all  the  ages  of  Christian  history,  as  Pom- 
peii was  buried  and  embalmed  in  ashes,  on  purpose  to  show 
us  in  this  advanced  age  of  Christian  civilization  what  were 


I02  MOKXLVG  LIGHT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

the  greatness  and  the  glory,  the  shame  and  the  degradation 
of  the  ancient  heathen  nations,  and  how  far  forward  Chris- 
tianity has  carried  the  people  who  have  received  and  obeyed 
its  instructions.  The  Egyptians  and  the  Tyrians  and  the 
Babylonians  —  even  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  —  had  the 
pride  and  the  conceit,  the  ignorance  and  the  weakness,  the 
falsity  and  the  cruelty  of  this  great  Chinese  people  of 
to-day.  If  the  ancients  as  they  lived  in  the  time  of  their 
glory  had  been  compared  with  one  of  our  modern  cultivated 
and  most  Christian  nations,  they  would  have  seemed  in 
many  respects  as  weak  and  ridiculous  as  the  Chinese  when 
compared  with  England  or  America. 

When  the  traveler  turns  his  back  upon  the  strange  old 
land  of  China,  and  the  outline  of  the  shore  fades  from  his 
sight,  and  he  thinks  over  where  he  has  been  and  what  he  has 
seen,  it  seems  to  him  like  a  dream  of  things  that  pass  before 
the  mind  in  troubled  sleep,  but  which  are  never  expected  to 
abide  the  light  of  the  full  day.  When  he  steps  foot  on  the 
shore  of  his  native  land,  and  he  wakes  up  amid  the  stirring, 
matter-of-fact  life  of  America,  it  seems  to  him  as  if  he  had 
been  carried  far  off  by  the  illusions  and  fancies  of  a  feverish 
sleep  and  he  had  been  walking  among  scenes  that  must  flee 
like  the  shadows  of  night  before  the  rising  sun.  But  the 
worst  thing  about  the  old  China  world  is  that  it  is  not  a 
dream,  but  a  great  and  sad  reality.  The  millions  of  igno- 
rant, superstitious,  degraded  people  are  all  a  living  reality. 
They  are  all  human  like  ourselves.  They  have  the  same 
essential  faculties  and  necessities  that  we  have.  That  great, 
mighty,  and  mysterious  people  have  been  living  for  ages  in 
the  pride  of  ignorance  and  the  self-conceit  of  seclusion  from 


WHAT   CAiV   IVE    TEACH   CHINA? 


103 


the  rest  of  the  world.  The  rush  and  the  roar  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  only  broken  in  a  little  upon  the  shore, 
but  the  uncounted  millions  of  the  interior  have  not  seen  the 
motion  nor  heard  the  sound.  Famine  and  war  and  hunger 
have  destroyed  millions  and  millions,  but  there  are  millions 
and  millions  more  still  left.  A  hundred  thousand  may  be 
taken  from  the  population  anywhere  and  nobody  be  missed. 
They  toil,  they  suffer,  they  die  ;  and  all  the  way  through  life 
they  are  oppressed  with  fear  of  things  that  do  not  exist, 
they  are  inspired  with  hopes  that  are  never  fulfilled,  they 
offer  prayers  which  are  never  answered,  they  make  sacrifices 
which  are  never  accepted.  The  uncounted  millions  of  China 
are  living  all  their  lifetime  in  bondage  to  fears  of  dangers 
that  never  come  and  hopes  that  are  never  fulfilled. 

How  can  the  Chinese  be  brought  out  of  the  sad  state  in 
which  they  are  living.^  It  is  the  harder  to  help  them,  just 
because  they  do  not  think  they  need  any  help.  In  their  own 
estimate  they  are  the  wisest,  mightiest,  most  excellent  of 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Their  great,  filthy,  abominable 
imperial  capital  they  call  heaven.  The  arm  of  the  sea 
through  which  ships  pass  in  approaching  the  capital  they 
call  the  gates  of  heaven.  The  great  city  at  the  mouth  of 
the  river  which  flows  down  from  their  capital  they  call  the 
garden  of  Paradise.  Peking,  with  its  pride  and  filth  and 
mud,  is  the  Chinaman's  highest  earthly  realization  of  felic- 
ity, beauty,  beatitude,  heaven.  How  can  such  a  people  be 
lifted  up  to  a  higher,  purer,  better  life  until  some  awful 
calamity,  some  crushing  blow  shall  show  them  their  weak- 
ness and  their  folly } 

It  is  idle  to  hope  that  China  is    going   to    be    converted 


I04  MOAWIXG   IJGIir   FN  MANY  LANDS. 

to  Christianity  and  brought  into  line  with  enlightened  and 
progressive  nations  in  a  day  or  during  the  present  genera- 
tion. The  ruling  policy  of  the  government  and  of  all  high 
officials  is  utterly  opposed  to  all  change.  Nobody  knows 
what  they  think  or  believe  ;  nobody  finds  it  safe  to  trust  to 
what  they  say.  Probably  they  suppose  it  will  be  for  their 
own  personal  interest  and  for  the  honor  and  safety  of  the 
great  empire  that  the  people  shall  be  held  back  from  the 
adoption  of  western  arts,  sciences,  and  religion  as  long  as 
possible.  The  mass  of  the  people  neither  know  nor  care 
anything  about  life  or  interest  or  duty  farther  than  to  keep 
on  in  the  old  course  which  their  ancestors  pursued  for  ages. 
All  their  thoughts  and  efforts  and  desires  are  absorbed  in  the 
struggle  for  existence.  The  old  superstitions,  oppressions, 
and  poverty  into  which  they  were  born,  surround  them  like 
a  thick  cloud,  and  they  can  see  no  way  out  of  the  encom- 
passing gloom.  The  religious  element  is  not  now  as  active 
and  aggressive  as  it  once  was,  either  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  or  the  policy  of  the  government.  It  does  not  now 
build  temples  and  pagodas  and  monasteries  of  vast  size  and 
cost,  as  it  once  did  in  days  long  gone  by,  but  it  still  holds 
the  people  in  passive  subjection  to  its  cruel  and  costly  sway. 
The  language,  the  laws,  and  the  customs  of  the  Chinese 
must  be  very  greatly  changed  before  they  can  begin  to  look 
at  the  great  facts  of  life  and  duty  as  we  do.  Their  words 
must  be  made  to  take  on  new  meanings  to  express  the  truths 
of  the  gospel,  and  then  a  generation  must  be  raised  up  to 
learn  those  meanings  and  add  them  to  the  old  signs  and 
sounds  in  which  their  ancestors  bound  up  the  whole  range 
of  Chinese  thought.     For  a  long  time  multitudes  may  hear 


WHAT   CAN   IV E    TEACH  CHINA?  105 

the  plainest  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  go  away  no  wiser 
in  mind,  no  better  in  heart,  than  they  were  before.  For  a 
long  time  the  process  of  teaching,  making  disciples  in  China 
must  be  very  slow.  It  can  be  carried  on  only  with  tireless 
patience  and  unconquerable  faith.  The  simplest  lesson  must 
be  repeated  again  and  again.  One  may  teach  and  talk  and 
labor  for  years,  and  then  find  that  he  has  only  just  begun  to 
find  his  way  into  the  mysterious  depths  of  the  Chinese 
mind.  Faithful  men  may  spend  their  whole  life  laboring  and 
longing  to  see  the  millions  of  that  great  country  turning 
unto  the  Lord  and  die  without  the  sight.  And  yet  the  time 
of  promise  is  sure  to  come.  The  long,  hard,  discouraging 
work  of  preparation  has  made  great  advances  in  twenty-five 
years.  In  many  instances  the  sorest  difficulties  and  hin- 
drances have  been  overcome.  The  divine  power  which  goes 
with  the  missionary  in  his  work  has  proved  itself  equal  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  mighty  task  which  it  has  under- 
taken. The  great  wall  of  heathenism  has  been  penetrated 
in  many  places,  and  the  host  of  the  Lord  is  gathering  in 
many  bands  and  they  stand  ready  to  march  up,  each  straight 
forward,  to  the  full  possession  of  the  whole  land.  When 
that  day  comes  there  will  be  a  song  of  gladness  which  all 
nations  shall  sing,  a  shout  of  triumph  which  will  be  heard 
around  the  world. 


X. 

JOHN    CHINAMAN. 

JOHN  CHINAMAN  is  the  greatest  mystery  in  our 
common  humanity.  Judged  after  western  ways  of 
thinking,  he  is  a  great  contradiction.  He  is  versatile, 
patient,  ingenious,  irrepressible,  and  yet  he  is  the  slave 
of  tradition  and  custom  ;  he  gets  little  advantage  from  his 
ingenuity  and  he  plods  on  in  the  same  beaten  track  for 
ages.  He  transgresses  the  prime  laws  of  health  and 
longevity,  and  yet  he  works  hard  ;  he  is  almost  insensible 
to  pain,  and  he  has  lived  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord 
God  gave  unto  his  fathers.  He  sleeps  in  close  rooms  ;  he 
breathes  bad  air ;  he  makes  a  block  of  wood  his  pillow  and 
the  dusty  floor  or  the  damp  ground  his  bed.  Yet  he  is 
more  healthy  than  many  who  take  the  utmost  pains  to  get 
fresh  air  and  clean  lodgings  and  comfortable  pillows  for 
the  night.  He  does  the  hardest  kinds  of  work  ;  he  carries 
burdens  heavy  enough  to  crush  ordinary  men ;  yet  he 
grows  strong  from  the  overtaxing  of  his  strength  and  he 
never  complains  of  the  hard  tasks  put  upon  him.  He  eats 
all  manner  of  crude,  unpalatable,  indigestible  food ;  yet 
he  thrives  on  his  hard  living,  and  his  stomach  seldom 
gives  way  under  the  severe  pressure  put  upon  it.  He 
works  all  day  in  the  paddy  field  up  to  his  knees  in  mud 
and  water,  and  the  sign  in  his  language  which  is  the  symbol 

106 


JOHN  CHINAMAN.  lO/ 

of  happiness  is  a  mouthful  of  rice.  When  he  would  salute 
his  friend  with  the  blessing  of  peace  in  the  morning,  he 
expresses  the    hope  that  he  has  eaten  his  rice  to-day. 

The  Chinaman  smokes  opium  and  tobacco  ;  the  streets 
of  his  great  cities  are  wallowing  places  for  swine  ;  he 
practices  vices  that  cannot  be  named  in  decent  speech ; 
yet  he  has  the  most  vitality  of  all  the  peoples  of  the 
East.  He  pulls  out  his  beard  with  tweezers,  shaves  the 
front  and  back  of  his  head  with  razors,  but  lets  the  hair 
on  his  crown  grow  as  long  as  it  will  of  itself,  and  then 
splices  it  out  with  false  hair  to  make  it  longer  ;  and  then 
he  is  so  puffed  up  with  his  fine  appearance  that  he  would 
sooner  lose  his  head  than  his  queue.  He  exposes  his  bare 
head  and  beardless  face  to  the  fierce  rays  of  the  sun,  and 
yet  I  never  heard  of  a  Chinaman's  getting  a  sunstroke. 
He  works  on  ships  and  boats  and  steamers,  runs  on 
errands,  draws  the  jinriksha,  drives  dog  carts  and  carriages, 
pushes  wheelbarrows  and  pulls  towlines,  and  employers  say 
that  he  is  just  the  man  for  the  job  when  there  is  hard  work 
to  be  done. 

Sometimes  the  Chinaman  seems  so  dull  that  impatient 
people  cannot  get  along  with  him,  and  yet  he  is  so  useful 
that  nobody  can  do  without  him.  He  has  a  great  reputation 
for  lying  and  stealing  in  his  own  country,  and  just  as  great 
a  reputation  for  honesty  and  truth-speaking  in  Java  and 
Japan.  He  packs  close  on  the  coolie  ship  for  the  long 
voyage  to  Australia  and  the  islands  of  the  South  Seas ; 
he  has  no  exercise  on  shipboard  ;  he  keeps  under  decks  ; 
he  eats  the  coarsest  food  and  he  comes  out  well  and 
cheerful    at   the    end    of   the  voyage.     He   builds    railroads 


I08  J/OA'A'LVG   LIGHT  I.V  MANY  LANDS. 

and  highways  and  canals ;  he  works  farms  and  mines  and 
machines  until  he  makes  the  owners  rich,  and  then  he 
is  told  that  he  is  not  wanted  any  longer,  he  must  go  and 
give  place  to  men  who  do  less  worlc  and  demand  more 
pay.  He  wears  his  blue  cotton  in  all  climates,  and  he 
faces  all  extremes  of  heat  and  cold  without  whiskey  to 
keep  him  warm  in  winter  and  without  ice  water  to  keep 
him  cool  in  summer.  He  gets  rich  when  others  starve ;  he 
keeps  healthy  when  others  die  ;  he  is  quiet  and  cheerful 
when  others  are  mourning  and  complaining;  he  is  peaceful 
when  others  quarrel;  he  is  industrious  when  others  are  idle 
and  lazy ;  he  flies  kites  and  fights  crickets  like  rude  boys, 
and  he  cools  himself  with  a  fan  as  if  he  were  the  most 
effeminate  of  all  people.  Yet  he  endures  more  hardship 
and  he  suffers  more  abuse  than  any  other  people  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  unless  the  African  be  an  exception. 
He  is  kicked  and  cuffed  and  snubbed  by  blustering  John 
Bull  and  bragging  Brother  Jonathan  ;  he  is  ridiculed  and 
laughed  at  by  all  western  nations,  and  yet  he  comes  up 
smiling  from  every  fall  and  he  makes  money  out  of  the 
people  who  abuse  and  banish  him. 

The  Chinaman's  country  is  overcrowded  with  people. 
He  thinks  it  the  fairest  and  the  most  favored  of  all  the 
lands  of  the  earth,  the  only  land  worth  living  in,  the  only 
dust  fit  to  be  buried  in,  and  yet  he  emigrates  to  all  quarters 
of  the  globe  ;  he  appears  to  be  contented  wherever  he  is, 
and  homesickness  is  a  disease  of  which  Chinamen  never 
die.  He  mounts  on  the  wrong  side  of  his  horse,  and  yet 
he  rides  well  when  he  gets  into  the  saddle  ;  he  makes  the 
compass    point    the    wrong  way,  and  yet    his   junk    seldom 


JOHN   CHINAMAN.  IO9 

gets  lost  on  the  sea.  He  begins  at  the  wrong  end  of  his 
book  to  read,  and  he  reads  backwards,  and  yet  he  has  been 
printing  and  reading  books  in  his  own  language  longer  than 
any  other  people  in  the  world. 

According  to  our  theories  and  ways  of  judging,  the 
Chinaman  is  a  great  contradiction.  He  lives  and  thrives 
and  multiplies  when  he  ought  to  fade  and  waste  away  and 
die.  His  tools  are  clumsy  ;  his  methods  of  working  are 
awkward  and  ill-adapted  to  what  he  tries  to  do  ;  his  taste 
is  unrefined  and  unnatural.  Yet,  in  his  line,  he  makes 
the  best  work  and  he  underbids  all  manufacturers  in  the 
market  of  the  world,  while  securing  a  good  profit  to  himself. 
He  pays  divine  honors  to  his  deceased  parents  ;  he  worships 
the  god  of  money,  and  yet  he  has  little  pity  for  the  suffering 
and  the  needy  ;  he  is  cruel  and  brutal  in  his  punishments  ; 
he  murders  his  own  children  to  relieve  himself  of  the  burden 
of  supporting  them.  He  paints  landscapes  without  perspec- 
tive, carves  images  of  animals  that  never  existed,  incurs  vast 
expense  in  support  of  a  religion  that  has  no  God.  He 
celebrates  his  father's  birthday  by  presenting  him  with  a 
cofifin,  and  he  burns  paper  money  to  pay  the  expense  of 
his  deceased  mother  in  her  journey  to  the  country  from 
which  none  ever  return. 

The  Chinaman,  go  where  he  will,  contented  as  he  seems 
to  be  everywhere,  is  really  never  at  home  save  in  his  own 
country;  he  never  becomes  a  citizen  or  a  subject  of  any 
other  government  than  his  own.  He  has  no  sympathy  with 
the  great  philosophies,  inventions,  and  progressive  ideas  of 
our  country  and  our  day.  He  lives  on  a  relic  of  the  past, 
a  moving  and  breathing  mummy  of  far  distant  generations, 


I  lO  MOKXING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

as  if  to  tell  the  nineteenth  century  how  the  great  nations 
of  the  ancient  world  would  look  if  seen  in  "  the  fierce  light 
which  beats  upon  the  thrones"  and  peoples  of  the  West. 

The  Chinese  stand  before  the  world  in  this  enlightened 
and  progressive  age  to  tell  us  what  would  have  been  the 
condition  of  the  most  cultivated  nations  to-day  had  it  not 
been  for  the  birth  of  the  divine  Child  that  was  born  in 
Bethlehem  eighteen  centuries  ago.  When  students  in 
cloistered  halls  and  theorists  in  schools  of  philosophy  get 
weary  of  culture  and  dissatisfied  with  Christian  civilization 
and  write  books  to  show  that  life  is  not  worth  living  in  the 
West,  let  them  go  to  the  far  East  and  see  what  life  they 
have  been  lifted  out  of  by  the  culture  of  which  they  are 
weary  and  the  civilization  with  which  they  are  not  satisfied. 

The  Chinaman  is  a  great  mystery  to  us  and  doubtless 
we  western  men  are  as  great  a  mystery  to  him.  We  are 
ever  trying  to  understand  and  explain  the  perplexities  and 
contradictions  in  him.  He  does  not  trouble  himself  about 
us  so  long  as  we  let  him  alone.  His  satisfaction  with 
himself  and  his  native  land  is  supreme  and  his  self-conceit 
is  sublime.  He  only  wants  to  keep  his  great  country  all 
to  himself  with  full  liberty  to  overrun  all  the  rest  of  the 
earth  in  search  of  riches  and  the  means  of  living  which 
he  fails  to  find  at  home.  If  he  had  some  way  to  keep  the 
unruly  river  within  its  channel  and  compel  the  clouds  to 
give  showers  in  their  season  and  the  sunlight  to  return 
after  the  rain,  he  would  ask  no  richer  blessing  of  heaven 
than  long  life  in  his  native  land.  In  all  matters  of 
business  and  money  transactions  he  is  timid  and  prudent 
and  cautious  to  the  extreme.      But  he  is  the  most  careless 


JOHN   CHINAMAN.  I  I  I 

and  reckless  of  all  men  about  his  own  life  and  the  lives  of 
his  fellowmen.  If  the  executioner  tells  him  to  kneel  down 
and  have  his  head  cut  off,  he  will  do  it  as  quietly  and 
meekly  as  the  good  child  kneels  to  say  his  prayers  at  bed- 
time. When  a  man  of  property  has  been  condemned  to 
death,  he  can  easily  get  some  one  to  suffer  the  penalty  in 
his  place  by  paying  a  small  sum  of  money  to  support  the 
family  of  the  substitute.  When  thousands  and  millions 
are  dying  of  famine,  the  starving  submit  to  their  fate  in 
silence  and  the  living  lift  up  no  cry  from  the  depths  of 
the  woe  which  is  upon  them.  Their  nerves  are  not 
strung  to  the  keen  sensibility  of  Christian  nations.  Patients 
in  hospitals  are  seldom  willing  to  take  ether  to  deaden 
the  pain  of  surgical  operations.  The  great  display  of 
mourning  at  the  burial  of  the  dead  is  a  conformity  to 
custom  rather  than  a  confession  of  grief.  The  coffin 
is  often  kept  in  the  house  for  ornament  long  after  it  has 
received  its  tenant,  and  the  long  procession  which  follows 
it  to  the  grave  has  the  appearance  of  a  holiday  excursion 
rather  than  a  display  of  sorrow. 

Thousands  of  Chinamen  live  in  boats  upon  the  water. 
They  are  born  and  they  make  their  only  home  and  they  die 
upon  the  water.  They  will  venture  out  upon  the  stormiest 
seas  in  their  clumsy,  high-decked  junks.  They  will  rush 
through  the  wildest  breakers  in  their  flat-bottomed  sampans. 
They  will  row  across  the  bow  of  a  steamer  when  it  is  going 
at  full  speed,  risking  their  lives  to  get  a  sign  of  good 
luck.  We  would  suppose  that  such  people  would  be  good 
seamen  and  well  able  to  take  care  of  themselves  on  the 
water.      But  the  fact  is  just  the  contrary.     Very  few  China- 


112  MOKX/XC  LIGHT   IX  MANY  LAXDS. 

men  can  swim.  Multitudes  are  drowned  by  the  ujisetting 
of  boats  and  the  careless  management  of  junks  every  year. 
They  make  very  little  effort  to  help  one  who  is  in  the  water 
and  in  danger  of  drowning,  and  the  man  overboard  makes 
very  little  effort  to  help  himself.  Often  he  will  just  throw 
up  his  hands,  make  no  cry,  no  struggle,  but  sink  and  drown 
at  once.  It  is  said  that  the  man  thrown  out  of  a  boat  has 
the  superstitious  belief  that  some  evil  spirit  or  demon  has 
pitched  him  over  and  is  pulling  him  down,  and  that  he  has 
nothing  to  do  but  submit  and  drown.  If  a  few  billets  of 
wood  are  afloat  where  the  boat  went  over,  there  will  be  a 
great  scramble  to  pick  them  up,  but  the  drowning  people 
will  be  left  to  sink,  because  there  is  a  great  scarcity  of  wood, 
but  the  land  has  already  more  people  than  it  knows  what  to 
do  with. 

A  few  days  before  I  was  at  Hankow  on  the  Yang-tse-Kiang 
River,  fifteen  persons  were  drowned  by  the  upsettmg  of  one 
boat  and  eight  by  the  upsetting  of  another,  and  nothing  was 
said  about  it  by  the  Chinese  themselves.  They  took  it  all 
as  a  matter  of  course.  So  at  Canton,  where  a  hundred 
thousand  people  are  said  to  live  in  boats  on  the  river,  cases 
of  drowning  occur  every  day,  and  the  great  floating  city 
never  misses  those  that  are  gone,  never  asks  how  such 
accidents  can  be  prevented  in  the  future.  The  average 
Chinaman  takes  his  lot  in  life  and  in  death  as  a  decree  of 
destiny  against  which  it  is  in  vain  to  contend.  He  will  eat 
his  rice  and  carry  his  burden  without  gratitude  for  the  one 
or  complaint  against  the  other.  He  will  laugh  and  be 
cheerful  while  he  can  and  die  when  he  must.  All  over 
the  East,   submission   to    destiny   is   the  law    of   life  which 


y  OHN  CHINAMAN.  I  I  3 

suppresses  all  effort  and  silences  all  complaint.  If  a  thing 
is  to  be,  it  is  in  vain  to  try  to  make  it  otherwise,  and  if 
it  was  to  be,  it  is  equally  vain  to  mourn  because  it  came 
to  pass. 

With  all  his  blind  faith  in  destiny,  the  Chinaman  has  an 
equally  blind  faith  in  luck.  He  has  a  thousand  devices  and 
observances  to  secure  good  luck.  He  will  risk  his  life  to 
get  a  good  sign  when  the  sign  itself  has  nothing  to  do  with 
getting  the  thing  he  wants.  I  was  just  starting  off  from 
Shanghai  upon  a  steamer  bound  for  Hankow,  seven  hundred 
and  seventy  miles  up  the  Yang-tse-Kiang  River.  A  poor 
boatman  thought  he  would  secure  good  luck  for  himself  for 
the  day  if  he  should  cross  the  bow  of  a  fast-running  steamer 
just  as  it  was  moving  off  upon  so  long  a  voyage.  He  rowed 
right  across  the  line  of  our  course  when  we  were  already 
moving  at  full  speed.  The  steamer  whistled  an  alarm  ;  the 
officer  on  the  bridge  shouted ;  the  engineer  reversed  the 
wheels.  But  the  infatuated  seeker  after  good  luck  kept  on 
rowing  till  the  bow  of  the  steamer  struck  his  little  craft,  cut 
it  in  two,  and  he  found  his  luck  in  a  watery  grave  on  the 
bottom  of  the  river.  If  the  Chinaman  could  learn  that 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  nature  is  better  than  watching  for 
luck,  it  would  make  his  daily  life  all  new.  But  unhappily  he 
supposes  that  nature,  the  whole  surrounding  world  of  earth 
and  air  and  water,  is  possessed  and  controlled  by  capricious, 
willful,  and  revengeful  spirits,  and  that  the  great  study  of 
life  for  him  is  to  avoid  the  displeasure  of  the  invisible 
inhabitants  of  earth,  air,  and  water,  that  are  ever  looking 
for  an  opportunity  to  cross  his  purposes,  disappoint  his 
hopes,  defeat  his  plans,  and  bring  him  to  disaster  and  defeat. 


I  14  MOKmXG  LI  GUT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

If  he  can  only  keep  on  terms  of  <^ood  understanding  with 
the  busy  and  mahgnant  powers  that  range  through  all 
departments  of  material  nature,  he  will  be  permitted  to 
fill  the  measure  of  his  days  with  prosperity  and  to  die  in 
peace. 

The  orthodox  Chinaman  burns  incense  all  day  at  his  shop 
door  to  keep  the  mischief-making  spirits  from  coming  in 
and  interrupting  his  bargains.  He  throws  burning  paper 
into  the  sea  to  prevent  the  spirits  of  the  deep  from  rousing 
up  storms  and  sinking  his  ship  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean. 
He  shakes  his  counting  frame  vigorously  every  morning  to 
drive  out  the  spirits  that  may  have  been  meddling  with  the 
sliding  buttons  overnight  and  thus  preparing  mistakes  and 
miscalculations  for  him  in  his  business  for  the  day.  He 
builds  a  heavy  stone  wall  on  the  other  side  of  the  street 
opposite  to  his  front  door  to  prevent  the  spirits  from 
finding  their  way  in  and  smiting  the  family  with  disease 
or  disaster  of  any  kind.  He  makes  the  lines  of  his  houses 
on  the  street  irregular  and  his  paths  through  the  fields 
crooked,  so  as  to  deceive  and  drive  away  the  spirits  that  are 
supposed  to  move  only  in  straight  lines.  He  watches  for  a 
lucky  day  to  begin  planting  his  field,  starting  on  a  journey^ 
contracting  a  marriage,  building  a  house,  buying  a  property, 
or  burying  the  dead.  With  all  his  shrewd,  practical  business 
talent,  he  allows  himself  to  be  governed  by  impressions, 
signs,  fears,  that  have  no  foundation  in  fact,  that  exist  only 
in  his  own  darkened  mind  and  defiled  imagination.  In  this, 
as  well  as  in  many  other  particulars,  the  Chinaman  seems  a 
contradiction,  doing  the  thing  which  we  would  say  he  would 
be  least  likely  to  do,  believing  the  thing  which  we  would  say 


yOHX  CHINAMAN.  I  i  5 

is  most  absurd  and  unreasonable.  And  yet,  after  all  has 
been  said  of  the  strange  weakness  and  inconsistencies  in 
Chinese  character,  there  is  another  side  to  be  shown  before 
we  make  up  our  judgment  of  the  sons  of  Han.  And  this 
other  view  will  show  that  western  nations  may  well  go 
to  the  Chinese  to  learn  some  very  important  lessons  in 
practical  life. 

But  before  we  pass  on  to  that  more  satisfactory  view  we 
shall  do  well  to  glance  a  little  more  closely  at  the  China- 
man's faith  in  the  overruling  power  of  spirits  in  the  earth, 
the  waters,  and  the  air.  This  base  and  blind  superstition 
haunts  him  wherever  he  goes.  It  controls  all  his  conduct 
in  the  main  plan  of  life  and  in  the  smallest  affairs  of  every- 
day work.  It  is  ever  uppermost  in  his  thoughts,  and  it 
determines  all  his  opinions  on  subjects  of  personal  interest 
to  himself  or  of  importance  to  his  country  and  the  world. 
Whenever  a  change  in  his  manner  of  life  or  in  the  order  of 
things  about  him  is  proposed,  his  first  question  is  whether 
the  spirits  will  take  offense  at  the  movement,  or  whether  it 
will  interrupt  them  in  their  goings  forth  to  and  fro  through 
all  the  earth.  Every  unusual  and  every  common  event  in 
the  world  of  nature  and  in  the  condition  of  the  people  is 
referred  to  the  caprices  and  the  intermeddling  of  mysterious 
beings  that  dwell  in  the  clouds,  sport  in  the  storm,  haunt 
the  caves  of  the  mountains,  the  current  of  the  rivers,  or  the 
depths  of  the  sea.  If  he  stays  at  home  or  starts  on  a 
journey,  if  he  builds  a  house  or  buys  a  field,  if  he  marries 
the  living  or  buries  the  dead,  he  must  consult  the  pleasure  of 
the  spirits  and  subject  his  plans  and  his  preferences  to  their 
approval.     There    is    no    field    of    work,    no    department    of 


Il6  J/OA'XLVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

business,  no  resort  for  recreation  where  the  Chinaman  can 
escape  the  presence  of  the  invisible  disturbers  of  his  peace 
and  the  malignant  tormentors  of  his  life.  He  dare  not  build 
the  wall  of  his  house  two  inches  higher  than  the  wall  of  his 
neighbor  for  fear  it  may  obstruct  the  movements  of  the 
spirits  through  the  air,  and  they  in  anger  will  throw  down 
his  house  upon  his  head.  He  makes  a  turn  to  the  right  or 
to  the  left  in  the  hall  of  his  house  for  fear  the  spirits  may 
find  their  way  in  and  bring  sickness  or  misfortune  upon  the 
whole  family.  When  he  dies,  his  friends  make  a  hole  in 
the  wall,  and  push  his  coffin  through  it  into  the  open  air, 
lest,  if  carried  through  the  common  door,  the  spirit  of  the 
departed  will  remember  the  way,  and  come  back  and  find 
entrance  to  plague  the  family.  The  spirit  is  supposed  to 
have  power  to  inflict  plague  and  fever,  and  drought  and 
famine,  and  yet  not  to  know  enough  to  find  the  door  of  a 
house  where  he  has  lived  in  the  body  for  fifty  years.  At 
one  time  the  spirits  are  so  intelligent  and  cunning  and 
mighty  that  nothing  can  deceive  or  oppose  them.  At 
another  he  thinks  them  so  weak  and  stupid  that  they 
cannot  find  their  way  if  a  wall  or  a  hedge  be  built  across 
their  path,  or  a  street  is  made  crooked  instead  of  straight. 
Whatever  loss  or  trouble  or  affliction  comes  upon  the  China- 
man, he  thinks  the  spirits  have  done  the  mischief,  and  he 
must  burn  joss  sticks,  or  paper  money,  or  pictures  of 
clothes  or  animals  or  houses  or  furniture  as  offerings  to 
appease  their  anger.  His  most  bitter  opposition  to  railroads 
and  telegraphs  and  steamships  and  churches  and  schools  and 
foreign-built  houses  arises  from  the  fear  that  such  changes 
will  offend  the  spirits,  and  they  will  bring  plague  and 
disaster    upon    the    people. 


JOHN   CHINAMAN.  I  I  7 

This  is  an  old  superstition  with  all  the  Chinese,  and  with 
little  modification  it  exists  among  all  the  people  of  the 
East.  It  has  little  to  do  with  their  religion,  unless  it  be 
understood  as  a  religion  in  itself.  It  is  all  the  same  to 
them  whether  they  take  the  name  of  Buddhist,  Taoist, 
or  Confucianist,  or  all  three  together.  It  existed  in  the 
country  long  before  either  of  the  three  religions  or 
philosophies  was  known,  and  it  survives  under  all  the 
teachings  and  ceremonies  of  either  faith.  The  Taoist 
makes  it  his  specialty  to  teach  and  observe  the  doctrine 
of  the  spirits  as  if  it  were  all  his  own.  And  yet  it  was  the 
doctrine  and  the  custom  of  the  people  long  before  Taoism 
was  ever  heard  of.  Buddhism  adopts  and  encourages  the 
same  superstition  about  spirits  as  if  it  were  a  part  of 
the  teachings  of  its  great  founder,  Gautama,  because  the 
missionaries  of  Buddhism,  at  their  first  coming  into  China, 
found  the  people  already  in  bondage  to  the  spirits,  and 
they  did  not  think  it  possible  to  persuade  them  to  exchange 
the  old  yoke  for  one  brought  by  strangers  from  a  far 
country.  Confucius  had  no  religion  at  all,  either  to 
observe  himself  or  to  teach  to  others.  He  was  simply  a 
secular  philosopher  who  inculcated  the  lessons  of  prudence 
and  profit  in  worldly  affairs.  He  had  little  faith  in  the 
existence  of  spiritual  beings  of  any  kind.  He  was  a 
social  and  political  economist,  who  was  so  busy  in  teaching 
men  how  to  live  in  this  world  that  he  had  no  time  or 
thought  for  any  world  beyond  this.  If  any  one  questioned 
him  about  a  future  life,  he  only  said  it  was  vain  and  useless 
to  concern  ourselves  about  another  life  so  long  as  this 
present    life    is    only    imperfectly    understood.       He    was 


I  I  8  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

williiiLC  to  let  the  people  keep  up  their  superstitious 
customs,  provided  they  would  observe  his  golden  mean 
of  temperance,  self-interest,  and  social  order. 

So  under  whatever  name  of  religion  or  philosophy  the 
Chinese  may  be  classed,  underneath  all  external  distinc- 
tions is  the  native  Chinaman,  believing  in  the  overruling 
power  of  spirits  more  than  in  Buddhism,  observing  the 
modes  of  propitiating  the  spirits  more  carefully  than  the 
prudential  precepts  of  Confucius.  He  believes  that  the 
spirits  for  good  or  ill  fortune  are  in  the  cards  with  which 
he  gambles,  the  bamboo  rods  with  which  he  divines, 
the  counting  frame  with  which  he  reckons,  and  the  tools 
with  which  he  works.  He  recognizes  the  voice  of  the 
spirits  in  the  wail  of  the  night  wind,  the  hoot  of  the  owl, 
and  the  thunder  from  the  clouds.  He  dreads  the  anger 
of  the  spirits  in  the  overflow  of  the  river  that  destroys 
his  field,  in  the  excess  of  the  drought  which  cuts  off  his 
hope  of  harvest,  in  the  cholera  and  the  fever  which  carry 
off  thousands  of  the  people  every  year  in  the  cities  and 
villages  of  the  empire. 

The  Chinaman  must  be  drawn  out  of  that  base  and 
blinding  superstition  before  he  can  be  a  free,  noble,  right- 
minded  man.  He  must  cease  to  live  in  dread  of  shadows, 
dreams,  signs,  omens ;  he  must  learn  to  revere,  trust,  and 
love  one  infinite,  eternal  Father,  the  Father  of  the  spirits 
of  all  flesh.  Then  he  will  live  a  new  life  and  rejoice  in 
the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  has  set  him  free.  He  must 
cease  to  live  in  dread  of  beings  that  have  no  existence,  and 
then  he  will  feel  himself  to  be  compassed  about  with 
everlasting  arms  of  deliverance,  and  his  daily  life,  even   in 


JOHN  CHINAMAN.  I  1 9 

the  lowest  depths  of  toil  and  poverty,  will  seem  to  him 
to  be  crowned  with  lovingkindness  and  tender  mercies. 
He  must  no  longer  seek  help  in  time  of  need  from 
astrologists  and  wizards  and  necromancers  and  fortune 
tellers  and  exorcists,  and  then  he  will  rejoice  in  the 
presence  and  protection  of  an  almighty  Friend  in  his  humble 
home,  and  he  can  walk  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death  and  fear  no  evil. 


XI. 

WHAT   CAN    CHINA   TEACH    US  ? 

TN  Studying  Chinese  character  and  history  it  is  easy  to 
-'-  make  out  a  long  catalogue  of  what  seem  to  us  absurdi- 
ties and  contradictions.  Nevertheless  there  are  some  very 
practical  lessons  which  the  youngest  and  most  progressive 
of  all  the  nations  may  well  learn  from  the  oldest  and  most 
conservative.  If,  for  example,  we  were  to  adopt  in  some 
modified  degree  the  Chinaman's  habit  of  economy,  there 
would  be  no  such  thing  as  want  in  all  our  land.  The  poorest 
in  America  earn  and  use  much  more  than  the  laborer  in 
China  who  has  enough  to  answer  all  his  wants.  And  his 
abundance,  even  in  what  we  would  call  poverty,  comes  from 
saving  that  which  we  throw  away.  He  gathers  up  coarse 
grass  and  reeds  and  the  smallest  twigs  of  shrub  and  tree 
and  bush  for  burning,  and  he  cooks  his  dinner  and  he  keeps 
himself  warm  with  fuel  of  which  we  should  make  no  account 
at  all.  He  saves  every  particle  of  refuse  from  the  house 
and  streets  to  enrich  his  ground  and  maintain  its  fertility 
for  successive  centuries  of  cultivation.  He  makes  an 
agreeable  and  nourishing  dish  for  his  dinner  out  of  vege- 
tables and  remnants  which  our  poorest  families  would  throw 
to  the  dogs.  He  mends  and  uses  broken  crockery  and 
furniture  which  we  would  think  fit  only  for  the  ash-heap 
or   the   furnace.     He   stitches   and    refits   old    clothes,    and 

120 


WHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  12  I 

wears  as  a  becoming  garment  rags  and  tatters  which  we 
throw  upon  the  waste-heap  or  send  off  to  be  ground  up  for 
paper.  He  does  fine  work  with  the  fewest  and  the  simplest 
tools,  when  we  should  want  costly  machinery  and  engines 
and  beautifully  polished  instruments.  He  makes  his  home 
comfortable,  according  to  his  low  standard  of  comfort,  with 
furniture  the  smallest  in  amount,  and  made  out  of  the 
commonest  materials,  when  we  would  think  it  necessary  to 
have  articles  bought  at  great  expense  and  made  by  skillful 
workmen.  He  travels  on  long  journeys  with  only  a  few 
cash  in  his  pocket  to  pay  his  way,  when  we  would  spend 
more  than  a  Chinaman  could  earn  in  a  year  of  toil.  He 
keeps  costly  goods  for  sale  in  shops  which  have  no  fine 
showcases  or  plate  glass  windows,  or  fittings  up  that  take 
all  the  profits  of  trade  and  double  the  price  of  the  things 
sold.  When  he  gets  rich  or  well-to-do  in  the  world,  he 
rides  on  a  donkey  or  in  a  wheelbarrow  or  in  a  sedan  chair, 
and  he  pays  five  cents  for  his  conveyance,  when  an 
American  merchant  would  pay  five  dollars. 

The  poor  Chinaman's  economy  is  not  indeed  all  a  designed 
and  cultivated  virtue,  nor  does  it  always  tend  to  an  increase 
of  possessions  and  general  prosperity.  It  is  most  apt  to  be 
a  necessity  which  he  cannot  escape,  or  a  habit  which  he 
does  not  know  how  to  break  up  or  to  improve.  In  one  case 
he  saves  because  he  must  needs  do  it  to  live.  In  the  other 
case  he  saves  because  he  does  not  know  how  to  spend  wisely 
or  profitably  for  himself  and  others.  He  will  carefully 
bargain  so  as  to  save  a  tenth  part  of  a  cent  in  trade,  and 
yet  spend  ten  or  a  hundred  times  that  amount  in  offerings 
and  sacrifices  to  get  good  luck  in  business.     He  eats  little 


122  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

because  it  is  all  he  has.  He  wears  simple  clothing  because 
he  can  get  no  better.  He  is  content  with  little  furniture  in 
his  house  because  he  can  get  no  more.  He  walks  on  long 
journeys  because  he  cannot  afford  to  ride.  And  he  makes 
the  best  of  a  hard  lot  because  it  will  only  make  it  worse  to 
complain.  But  if  we,  in  this  favored  land  of  America, 
practiced  from  choice  more  of  the  economy  which  the 
Chinaman  submits  to  as  a  necessity,  we  could  still  live  in 
bright  homes,  wear  our  silks  and  broadcloths,  travel  at 
whirlwind  speed,  and  secure  all  our  social  enjoyments  of 
life  without  wearisome  struggle  to-day  and  without  anxiety 
for  the  morrow.  There  is  wealth  enough  in  our  land  to 
relieve  all  want,  there  is  work  enough  to  keep  all  busy,  and 
blessing  of  every  kind  enough  to  make  all  thankful  and 
happy,  if  only  w^  use  well  what  we  have,  and  never  expend 
our  money  before  we  get  it.  With  us  it  is  waste  that  brings 
poverty,  self-indulgence  which  leads  to  complaint,  and  grasp- 
ing for  that  which  wnll  do  us  no  good  that  makes  us  lose 
what  we  have.  Young  America  may  well  learn  from  old 
China  that  self-restraint  brings  liberty  and  independence, 
wise  economy  tends  to  abundance,  and  one  of  the  lessons  of 
home  education  is  to  learn  what  unnecessary  things  to  do 
without  in  order  to  get  the  things  that  are  best  worth 
having. 

The  Chinaman  may  be  safely  quoted  as  a  conspicuous 
example  of  industry.  He  is  never  known  to  complain  of 
too  much  work  or  too  many  hours  in  the  day.  Chinese 
servants,  when  at  their  best,  seem  to  work  all  day  and 
watch  all  night,  and  they  do  both  for  small  wages,  and  they 
never   complain.     Laborers   are    in    the    field    early    in    the 


IVHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  1 23 

morning  at  their  work,  and  they  make  their  daily  toil  keep 
pace  with   the  journeys   of   the    sun.     Riksha   men    are   at 
their  post  waiting  for  a  call  to  run  through  the  streets  at  a 
rapid  pace  an  hour  before  the  sun  is  up  in  the  morning,  and 
they  are  within  call  at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  the  night. 
Mechanics  will  work  with  the  poorest  tools,  and  make  up  in 
time  and  attention  and  minute  skill  what  is  wanting  in  the 
tools  that  they  have    to  work  with.     Carvers   in  wood   and 
stone  and  ivory  will  produce  the  most  minute  and  delicate 
lines    and    cuttings    and   the    most    complete    and    graceful 
forms,  and  they  will  do  it  all    simply  by  keeping  at    their 
work   hour   after   hour,    day   after   day,    with    slow,    hardly 
perceptible  progress,  until  the  task  is  done.     Weavers  and 
embroiderers  in  silk  and  pictures  upon  satin  and  porcelain 
have  the  simplest  possible  implements  for  their  trade,  and 
yet  they  produce  the  most  delicate  lines  and  shadings,  just 
by  patient    attention    to   details    and    the    most    economical 
use  of  materials.     House  carpenters  and  cabinetmakers  will 
imitate  any  pattern  that  is  given  them  so  perfectly  that  the 
original  and  the  imitation  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from 
each  other.     Writers  will  produce  the  strange  and  complex 
characters  of   their  language   so  perfectly  that  the  printed 
and  the  written  letters  seem  to  be  the  workmanship  of  the 
same  hand.     I  saw  four  letters  or  characters  inscribed  upon 
the  walls  of  a  guild  hall  in  Canton,  and  I  was  told  that  the 
company    paid    four    hundred    dollars,   a    hundred    dollars    a 
letter,  to  the  writer,  simply  because  they  were  supposed  to 
be  such  a  masterpiece  of  fine  writing.     Another   company 
paid  a  hundred  dollars  to  a  man  who  only  dipped  the  tassel 
of    his   girdle   in   ink   and   dashed   off    the   letters   with   a 


I  24  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

flourish  on  the  wall.  But  he  was  supposed  to  be  a  genius, 
and  the  Chinese  have  very  few  such.  They  make  their  way 
by  plodding,  persevering  industry.  We  hired  four  men  to 
take  us  in  a  house  boat  from  Tientsin  to  Tung-cho.  The 
distance  by  the  river  is  a  hundred  miles.  The  four  men 
worked  hard  from  daylight  in  the  morning  to  dark  each 
day  for  six  days  to  get  us  through,  and  we  gave  them 
four  dollars  and  a  half  for  their  service,  and  they  never 
complained  of  the  hard  work  or  the  small  wages. 

Let  us  imitate  the  minute,  patient,  painstaking  industry 
of  the  Chinese  in  our  common,  everyday  work,  and  it  will 
put  a  new  stamp  of  fidelity  and  completeness  upon  all  our 
buildings,  furniture,  manufactures  of  every  sort.  We  waste 
more  material  than  the  Chinaman  uses,  by  our  national  habit 
of  hurrying  everything,  by  our  unwillingness  to  take  time 
and  pains  to  do  everything  well.  The  Chinaman  is  blamed 
and  laughed  at  by  us  because  he  is  so  slow  —  he  spends  so 
much  time  on  work  that  our  mechanics  are  expected  to  do 
offhand,  blow  after  blow.  Nevertheless  I  think  our  work 
would  be  done  much  better,  our  furniture,  our  houses,  our 
shoes,  our  clothes,  our  books,  our  tools,  our  machines  would 
give  us  much  more  satisfaction,  if  the  makers  would  take 
a  lesson  from  the  Chinaman,  and  so  take  time  to  do  their 
work  well ;  if  the  mechanic  would  never  let  any  article 
go  from  his  hands  until  he  could  say  that  he  had  done 
his  best. 

It  is  indeed  true  that  the  Chinaman's  patience  and  perse- 
verance are  often  expended  upon  things  of  little  value. 
He  cuts  several  hollow  globes  of  ivory,  one  within  the  other, 
and  he  makes  them  all  free  to  move  in  any  direction  within 


WHAT  CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US? 


125 


the  outer  shell.  The  work  when  done  is  nothing  but  a 
freak  of  skill.  It  is  very  difficult  to  do,  and  it  is  worth 
nothing  when  done.  The  time  and  labor  spent  upon  it 
would  be  more  than  sufficient  to  build  the  house  that  the 
workman  lives  in.  A  Chinaman  will  carve  in  marble  the 
figure  of  an  animal  that  never  existed,  except  in  his  own 
grotesque  imagination.  And  the  labor  and  skill  given  to 
the  absurd  representation  of  a  dragon,  a  griffin,  or  a  unicorn 
would  make  a  successful  architect  or  a  renowned  sculptor. 
The  student  who  is  ambitious  of  literary  honors  or  of  a 
government  appointment  spends  many  years,  sometimes 
fifty,  or  a  whole  lifetime,  in  committing  to  memory  the 
mysterious  signs  of  his  classic  language.  It  is  indeed  called 
education,  and  the  man  who  succeeds  in  mastering  the 
strange,  disconnected  symbols  is  called  learned.  But  it  is 
simply  a  task  of  memory.  It  does  not  furnish  the  man  with 
knowledge  or  discipline  or  acquaintance  with  the  affairs  of 
the  real  world  in  which  he  is  to  live  and  act  his  part.  It  is 
simply  a  task  of  committing  to  memory  things  that  have  no 
connection  with  each  other,  and  often  no  meaning  to  the 
learner.  And  yet  the  task  itself  is  certainly  a  display  of 
patience,  industry,  perseverance,  worthy  of  a  better  object. 
In  Peking  I  saw  a  man  who  had  come  hundreds  of  miles  to 
offer  himself  for  examination  in  the  Chinese  classics.  He 
said  he  was  seventy-four  years  old,  and  he  had  been  studying 
all  his  life  to  commit  to  memory  enough  of  the  grotesque 
characters  to  pass  examination,  get  his  degree,  and  go  home 
to  die  in  peace  and  honor.  He  had  given  seventy  years  of 
toil  to  get  a  degree  which  would  be  worth  nothing  to  him 
but  a  name  when  he  got  it  at  last. 


126  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

I  sometimes  think  that  students  in  our  own  country- 
would  do  well  to  task  themselves  in  like  manner  to  master 
things  worth  knowing  and  the  knowledge  of  which  will 
prepare  them  for  the  demands  of  practical  life.  And  I 
would  not  say  even  that  the  child  must  needs  understand 
everything  that  he  commits  to  memory,  as  fast  and  as  far 
as  he  advances.  We  try  to  make  a  great  show  of  teaching 
the  child  the  meaning  of  everything  as  fast  as  he  learns  it. 
And  yet  we  have  to  give  up  our  theory  at  the  very  first  step 
in  education.  The  child  must  learn  the  alphabet  before  he 
learns  the  meaning  or  the  use  of  a  single  letter.  The  child 
must  learn  the  multiplication  and  the  division  of  numbers 
before  he  can  understand  the  endless  uses  and  applications 
of  such  tables.  So  there  are  many  great  yet  simple  pre- 
cepts of  duty  and  faith  which  the  child  should  learn  long 
before  he  understands  the  importance  or  the  reason  of  such 
precepts.  The  child  must  learn  to  obey  before  he  knows 
the  source  or  the  extent  of  parental  authority.  The  child 
must  learn  to  look  up  to  God  in  trust  and  love  before  he 
knows  anything  more  about  God  than  just  this,  that  he  is 
great  and  good  and  must  be  loved  and  obeyed.  The  best 
precepts  of  duty,  those  which  go  with  us  like  guardian 
angels  to  direct  our  steps  all  the  way  through  life,  are  those 
we  learned  before  we  knew  their  meaning  or  understood 
their  importance.  The  best  guide  we  have  within  ourselves, 
conscience,  never  reasons  or  explains.  It  only  whispers  in 
the  secret  place  of  the  soul  the  sacred  and  awful  command, 
"Thou  shalt  "  ;  "Thou  shalt  not." 

The  Chinese  may  be  quoted  as  an  example  to  all  nations 
for  their  high  respect  for  reputable  authority,  a  becoming 


WHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  12/ 

reverence  for  all  that  is  worthy  and  venerable  in  the  past, 
a  cautious  and  conservative  clinging  to  old  ways,  so  far  as 
they  are  good  and  so  far  as  they  will  help  the  present 
generation  to  find  out  better  ways  for  the  future.  The 
Chinese  do  indeed  carry  their  reverence  for  form  and 
usage  to  an  absurd  and  unwarranted  extreme.  Their  best 
reason  for  doing  anything  as  they  do  is  the  simple  fact 
that  their  fathers  did  so  before  them.  With  them  the 
ancients  are  always  the  sages  ;  they  had  all  wisdom  ;  and 
the  idea  of  improving  upon  their  instructions  or  usages  is 
profane  and  demoralizing  in  the  extreme.  The  people  of 
to-day  must  wear  the  long  queue,  shave  the  front  and  back 
of  the  head,  set  up  ancestral  tablets,  worship  the  spirits  of 
the  departed,  just  because  the  generation  that  went  before 
them  did  so.  They  build  vast  temples  and  offer  sacrifices 
to  Confucius  because  their  fathers  did  so,  and  it  would 
dishonor  the  memory  of  the  great  departed  to  deviate 
from  their  customs.  The  one  great,  standing  law  of  duty 
to  the  well-bred  Chinaman  is  to  keep  to  the  old  ways, 
observe  the  old  ceremonies,  hold  himself  and  the  nation 
to  the  same  undeviating  course  from  age  to  age.  New 
customs,  foreign  ways,  western  science,  are  to  be  rejected 
just  because  they  are  new  and  different  from  the  ways  of 
the  fathers. 

All  this  seems  very  strange  and  stupid  to  us,  whose  great 
word  for  inspiration  and  effort  is  Progress  :  improvement, 
new  departure,  new  philosophy,  new  theology,  a  new 
world.  Yet  it  is  barely  possible  that  we  might  go  more 
safely  if  we  were  less  eager  to  go  fast.  We  might  be 
improved    in    all    that    is    noble   and   excellent  in  character 


128  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

by  tempering  our  desire  for  new  things  with  reverence 
for  whatever  is  venerable  and  true  in  the  old.  It  is  not 
a  good  indication  in  children  to  speak  slightingly  of  their 
parents,  even  though  the  children  may  have  more  educa- 
tion, experience,  and  property  than  the  parents  ever  had. 
Neither  is  it  a  good  indication  in  any  people  to  speak 
contemptuously  of  their  ancestors.  A  great  and  strong 
and  progressive  people  must  be  a  reverent  and  believing 
people.  A  people  without  faith  in  truth  and  duty,  in  God 
and  in  themselves,  are  open  to  every  disorder  and  tumult 
and  they  are  on  the  high  road  to  decay  and  death. 

To  be  wise  and  prudent  in  adopting  changes  in  laws  and 
customs,  in  opinions  and  doctrines,  we  must  have  a  profound 
respect  for  the  opinions  and  customs  that  have  come  down 
to  us,  hallowed  by  time  and  by  the  memory  of  the  great  and 
the  good  of  other  days.  There  are  some  forms  of  faith 
which  are  venerable  just  because  they  are  old,  just  because 
they  have  been  accepted  and  relied  upon  by  the  noblest  and 
the  best  of  many  generations.  We  need  not  adopt  the 
Chinaman's  reverence  for  everything  said  or  supposed  to  be 
said  by  Confucius,  or  by  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  the  men 
of  old  time.  There  are  no  sages  in  the  history  of  any 
nation  to  whom  we  can  safely  ascribe  the  wisdom  which  the 
Chinese  find  in  the  father  of  their  philosophy  and  the 
founder  of  their  faith.  But  there  have  been  noble  men, 
giants  in  intellect,  saints  in  character,  before  our  day.  If 
we  are  better  or  stronger  in  any  respect  than  they  were,  it 
is  because  their  strength  and  wisdom  have  been  added  to 
our  own.  We  are  farther  on  in  the  progress  towards  a 
rational  faith  and  a  reputable  life  just  because  they  started 


IVI/AT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  1 29 

US  in  the  right  way  and  they  led  us  on  to  the  end  of  their 
journey. 

The  Chinese  may  well  teach  Young  America  important 
lessons  in  respect  for  age  and  obedience  to  parents.  In 
this,  as  in  many  other  things,  the  Chinese  carry  a  character- 
istic virtue  to  an  absurd  and  an  idolatrous  extreme.  The 
son  is  taught  to  behave  himself  with  the  most  abject  and 
servile  reverence  in  the  presence  of  his  living  father,  and 
he  must  regard  the  spirit  of  his  dead  ancestor  with  a 
worship  which  can  be  rightly  rendered  only  to  the  one 
infinite  Father  of  all  spirits  and  the  Giver  of  every  good 
gift.  Then,  too,  it  is  often  said,  to  the  disparagement  of 
the  Chinese  son,  that  the  homage  which  he  pays  to  his 
deceased  ancestors  does  not  spring  from  real  reverence  or 
affection  for  the  departed,  but  from  fear  that  their  spirits, 
if  offended  by  neglect,  will  work  him  evil  by  blasting  his 
crops,  deranging  his  business,  bringing  sickness  and  death 
upon  his  household.  However  that  may  be,  a  large  part 
of  the  stability  of  the  Chinese  character  and  the  perma- 
nency in  Chinese  institutions  may  be  traced  to  the  rever- 
ence which  the  young  are  taught  to  show  to  the  aged, 
the  obedience  which  children  render  to  parents,  the  honor 
which  all  classes  put  upon  men  venerable  in  age  and 
wisdom    and    authority. 

We  should  not  think  it  a  mark  of  high  respect  and  deep 
affection  if  a  young  man  in  America  should  celebrate  his 
father's  sixtieth  or  seventieth  birthday  by  presenting  him 
with  a  very  costly  and  highly  ornamented  coffin.  We  should 
say  it  was  a  sign  that  the  son  thought  it  quite  time  for  his 
aered  father  to  take  to  the  narrow  house  himself,  and  leave  the 


130  J/ORXLVG   LIGHT  IX  MAXV  LAXDS. 

homestead  and  property  to  his  heir  and  successor.  And  yet 
the  Chinese  son  does  all  that  as  a  token  of  profound  affec- 
tion and  a  fitting  expression  of  his  desire  that  his  venerable 
parent  may  live  many  years  and  keep  the  carved  and  gilded 
cofifin  ever  in  sight  in  the  best  room  of  his  house,  to  show 
to  his  friends  as  an  evidence  of  the  filial  gratitude  and  affec- 
tion of  his  son.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  selfishness 
and  insincerity  of  the  show  of  affection  and  reverence  which 
the  Chinese  make  towards  their  parents,  still  it  is  true  that 
they  have  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise  to  children  who 
honor  father  and  mother.  Their  days  have  been  long  upon 
the  land  which  the  Lord  God  gave  them  as  their  inheritance 
among  all  the  nations.  No  people  in  all  history  have  held 
the  uninterrupted  possession  of  their  country  so  long,  none 
have  maintained  the  same  institutions,  social  customs,  and 
traditions  for  so  many  centuries. 

So  with  all  people  and  always  and  everywhere :  the  founda- 
tion of  all  national  order,  permanency,  and  continued  life 
must  be  laid  in  the  family,  in  the  honor  which  children  show 
to  their  parents,  in  the  habits  of  filial  obedience  which  begin 
with  the  child  and  grow  strong  with  the  man.  Disobedience 
to  parents  is  the  beginning  and  the  fruitful  source  of  disobe- 
dience to  all  laws,  human  and  divine.  Rudeness,  irreverence, 
lack  of  courtesy  and  mutual  honor  in  the  household,  are  sure 
to  train  up  a  people  to  be  rude,  reckless,  and  godless.  Their 
history  will  be  a  succession  of  revolutions  and  their  pros- 
perity will  be  the  forerunner  of  social  disorder  and  ruin. 
Peaceful,  well-ordered  homes  are  a  more  effectual  defense  of 
a  nation  than  standing  armies,  cannon-proof  forts,  and  iron- 
clad ships  of  war.     The  obedience  which  the  son  shows  to 


WHAT   CAX   CniXA    TEACH   US?  131 

the  law  and  order  of  his  father's  house,  the  habits  of  kindli- 
ness and  courtesy  and  fidelity  which  he  practices  in  his  early 
years,  in  the  seclusion  of  his  own  home,  will  make  him  brave 
in  the  time  of  danger,  patient  in  the  time  of  trial,  true  and 
honorable  at  all  times.  Let  children  in  our  American  homes 
learn  the  lesson  of  law  and  duty  as  they  learn  their  mother 
tongue  from  the  lips  of  their  parents,  and  our  nation  will 
outlive  the  centuries  of  China  and  it  will  be  exalted  and 
honorable  among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

The  Chinaman  may  well  teach  us  the  lesson  of  content- 
ment with  our  lot,  whatever  that  lot  may  be.  He  can  give  us 
an  example  of  a  disposition  to  make  the  best  of  everything 
about  us,  even  when  our  lot  is  not  what  we  would  choose  and 
many  things  give  us  annoyance  and  trouble  every  day.  Hap- 
piness, contentment,  come  not  so  much  from  any  outward 
condition  as  from  the  use  we  make  of  what  we  have.  The 
mind,  trained  and  disciplined  to  right  habits  of  thought  and 
right  feelings  of  heart,  is  its  own  master  and  the  master  of 
everything  which  affects  its  experiences  from  day  to  day. 
We  can  fret  and  complain  with  everything  to  make  us  happy  ; 
and  we  can  sing  and  give  thanks  under  the  greatest  losses 
and  disappointments. 

You  may  say  that  the  contentment  and  cheerfulness  of  the 
Chinaman  come  from  ignorance  and  self-conceit.  But  still 
he  may  teach  us  to  make  as  much  of  our  better  knowledge 
and  happier  lot  as  he  makes  of  his  mistakes  and  disadvan- 
tages. He  thinks  his  country  is  the  central  flowery  kingdom 
of  all  the  earth.  On  his  land  the  sun  shines  with  the  most 
benignant  beams,  and  the  rains  fall  with  the  greatest  abun- 
dance of  the  blessings  of  heaven.     He  has  rice  to  eat,  and  a 


132  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

reed  or  a  mud  cabin  to  live  in,  and  a  cotton  shirt  to  wear,  and 
he  speaks  with  pity  or  contempt  of  those  far-off  tribes  who, 
as  he  supposes,  live  in  holes  in  the  ground,  eat  roots  and 
creeping  things  for  food,  and  go  without  clothing  in  heat 
and  cold.  He  thinks  his  blind,  back-handed  language  the 
most  beautiful,  the  most  sacred  and  divine  speech  ever 
given  to  the  lips  of  man.  He  considers  all  other  languages 
but  jargon,  the  barking  of  dogs,  the  shrieks  of  monkeys,  in 
comparison  with  his  most  ancient  and  sacred  speech.  He 
thinks  the  sages  of  his  land  have  all  wisdom  and  all 
knowledge,  and  that  obedience  to  their  precepts  will  bring 
the  highest  happiness  and  prosperity  possible  for  man.  The 
babel  of  noise  and  confusion  which  is  the  sign  of  diligence 
in  his  schools,  and  the  endless  repetition  of  unmeaning 
sounds  by  which  he  learns  to  read,  and  the  lifelong  labor 
which  it  costs  him  to  master  the  lifeless  literature  of  his 
sacred  books,  he  considers  the  best  evidence  that  he  belongs 
to  the  most  enlightened  people  of  all  the  earth.  The  cheer- 
less hovels  which  he  builds  to  live  in,  the  clumsy  tools  with 
which  he  works,  the  coarse  manufactures  in  his  shops,  and 
the  heavy  models  of  his  ships,  he  takes  to  be  the  utmost 
attainment  of  human  skill.  The  people  who  live  and  work 
in  any  other  way  are  to  him  boors  and  barbarians. 

We  smile  at  the  Chinaman's  self-conceit  and  we  pity  the 
ignorance  out  of  which  it  grows.  And  yet  we  may  well  envy 
the  bliss  which  his  ignorance  brings  ;  and  we  would  be  hap- 
pier if  we  had  more  of  the  contentment  which  the  poor 
Chinaman  draws  from  his  self-conceit.  His  devotion  to  a 
country  which  he  has  so  little  reason  to  love  should  put  us 
to  shame  for  complaining  of  a  country  in  which  the  highest 


WHAT   CA.y   CHINA    TEACH   US? 


13: 


attainments  of  culture  and  civilization  are  within  the  reach 
of  every  citizen.  If  the  Chinaman  can  be  content  with  hard 
work  and  poverty  pressing  him  every  day  of  his  life,  if  he 
can  be  cheerful  with  no  hope  of  ever  improving  his  hard  lot, 
how  much  more  should  we  rejoice  and  sing  for  gladness  of 
heart  that  we  have  ample  pay  for  work  done  and  abundant 
leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  mind,  and  we  can  know  from 
personal  inquiry  that  ours  is  the  country  where  the  laboring 
man  has  the  highest  privileges  and  the  most  abundant 
reward  for  his  labor.  No  land  on  the  face  of  the  earth  gives 
all  its  inhabitants  so  many  things  to  be  thankful  for.  Con- 
tinual indulgence  makes  us  hard  to  please.  It  is  not  what 
we  want  that  makes  us  complain,  but  the  many  things  we 
have  and  fail  to  use  well.  Self-mastery  will  make  us  mas- 
ters of  any  lot  and  give  us  reasons  for  gratitude  in  every 
estate  of  life. 

The  Chinaman  may  teach  us  a  good  lesson  in  maintaining 
a  high  respect  for  education  and  thorough  discipline  in  prep- 
aration for  all  the  duties  of  public  and  private  life.  In  this 
case  too  we  draw  our  lesson  from  a  mistaken  use  of  a  theory 
which  is  good  and  true.  It  is  assumed  by  the  government 
that  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  classics  is  the 
best  preparation  for  the  duties  of  public  office.  But  that  is 
a  very  great  mistake.  The  Chinese  classics  give  no  instruc- 
tion in  the  practical  and  business  affairs  of  the  world  as  men 
now  live  and  as  they  must  live  to  keep  abreast  of  the  time 
and  the  progress  of  the  age.  They  teach  no  branch  of  sci- 
ence as  it  is  now  taught  in  the  most  advanced  schools  of 
the  western  world  ;  they  convey  no  useful  knowledge  of  pro- 
cesses in  the  arts  or  principles  of  government  or  sources  of 


134 


MORNIXG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


national  prosperity.  They  are  to  be  mastered  by  patience 
and  perseverance  in  barely  and  blindly  committing  to  mem- 
ory words  and  sounds  that  have  little  meaning  or  connec- 
tion to  the  learner  when  he  is  first  chained  down  to  the 
dull  and  unmeaning  task.  The  man  who  is  fifty  years  of 
age  and  who  has  spent  his  life  thus  far  in  committing  to 
memory  signs  without  connection  and  words  without  mean- 
ing is  a  very  unfit  person  for  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 
public  office  or  the  management  of  any  department  of  busi- 
ness. He  is  an  imbecile,  and  he  often  takes  especial  pains 
to  show  that  he  does  nothing  and  that  he  does  not  intend  to 
do  anything.  He  cultivates  his  finger  nails  till  they  become 
so  long  that  he  cannot  use  his  hands  in  any  practical  work. 
And  he  takes  especial  pride  in  showing  the  bird  claws  on  his 
fingers,  for  those  horny  appendages  are  conclusive  proof  that 
he  never  does  any  kind  of  work.  Nevertheless  he  carries 
out  the  Chinese  idea  of  education.  He  goes  through  a  long, 
laborious  course  of  training  to  fit  himself  for  a  place  of 
honor  and  responsibility;  but  the  fitting  consists,  not  in  a 
knowledge  of  the  duties  he  is  to  perform,  but  of  the  sayings 
of  men  that  have  been  dead  two  thousand  years.  He  is  not 
in  a  hurry  to  come  out  of  his  schooldays  early.  If  he  can 
only  begin  his  public  career  at  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  age,  he 
is  content.  He  thinks  the  time  and  labor  given  to  prepara- 
tion well  and  profitably  spent. 

As  a  matter  of  course  such  a  system  of  education  must 
prove  a  failure.  Brilliant  men  break  away  from  its  trammels 
and  climb  to  the  seats  of  wealth  and  power  in  defiance  of 
its  restrictions.  Dull  men  plod  through  the  whole  course  of 
classics   only  to  become  the  dupes  of  knaves  who   live    by 


WHAT   CAX   CHINA    TEACH   US?  135 

plunder  and  perjury.  Trustworthy  ofificials,  if  any  such  can 
be  found,  are  incapable,  and  the  talented  cannot  be  trusted. 
Nevertheless  the  Chinaman's  great  mistake  in  making  the 
mastery  of  dead  forms  the  basis  of  education  may  well  teach 
us  the  grand  lesson  that  thorough  preparation  for  any  work 
or  ofifice  is  the  best  economy.  The  Chinaman  works  hard 
and  long,  but  his  labor  is  lost  because  it  is  misapplied.  Let 
us  imitate  his  diligence  and  perseverance  in  learning  things 
worth  knowing,  and  we  shall  save  both  time  and  toil  in  the 
end.  Hurry  is  waste.  Let  apprentices  take  time  to  learn 
their  trade  and  learn  it  well  before  they  set  up  for  master 
workmen.  Then  fewer  ships  will  sink  because  they  were 
not  well  put  together,  fewer  houses  will  fall  because  the  walls 
were  not  set  on  a  firm  foundation,  fewer  people  will  be  hurt 
or  killed  on  land  or  sea  because  engineers  and  captains  and 
conductors  had  not  been  sufHciently  trained  to  their  busi- 
ness. Let  teachers  themselves  be  taught  thoroughly  before 
they  undertake  to  teach  others,  and  then  fewer  scholars  will 
go  through  the  whole  course  of  our  schools  without  getting  a 
practical  education.  Let  all  men  be  content  to  take  the  life- 
long training  in  faith  and  patience  and  hope  which  the  divine 
Teacher  institutes,  and  then  they  will  be  prepared  for  that 
other  and  greater  life,  where  mistakes  and  failu'-es  cease  to 
be  known. 

We  shall  all  do  well  to  take  lessons  from  the  Chinaman 
in  practical  sagacity  and  energy  in  the  management  of 
worldly  business.  He  is  very  far  from  being  a  model  worthy 
of  imitation  in  honesty  and  fair  dealing.  He  is  not  apt  to 
speak  the  truth  unless  he  sees  very  clearly  that  it  is  for  his 
present  and  personal  interest  to  do  so.     He  is  very  slow  to 


136  MOKXhVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

believe  or  to  see  that  there  is  anything  wrong  or  dishonor- 
able in  lying.  All  the  wisdom  which  he  has  ever  learned 
from  Confucius  and  all  the  sages  of  his  native  land  has  only 
made  him  shrewd  and  keen-sighted  in  looking  out  for  his 
own  interest.  And  yet  he  is  a  model  in  taking  hold  reso- 
lutely of  the  first  profitable  work  which  comes  to  hand,  be  it 
ever  so  low  and  little  rewarded.  Unemployed  workmen  in 
America  would  never  fall  into  the  disreputable  trade  of 
tramps  if  they  would  let  the  Chinaman  teach  them  to  do 
well  and  at  once  the  first  work  that  offers.  He  does  not 
sit  down  and  theorize  as  to  the  best  method  of  work  or 
the  just  law  of  wages  or  the  number  of  hours  that  make  a 
day,  while  the  work  itself  remains  undone.  He  does  not 
waste  time  in  waiting  for  something  better  to  turn  up, 
while  the  good  opportunity  of  to-day  remains  unimproved. 
He  takes  hold  of  things,  if  need  be,  by  the  rough  handle, 
and  he  keeps  hold  until  the  rough  handle  is  worn  smooth 
by  use. 

The  Chinaman  goes  to  Burmah  and  Siam  and  Singapore 
and  Java,  and  gets  all  forms  of  profitable  business  into  his 
hands,  while  the  natives  lounge  in  the  sun  and  laugh  at  the 
pig-tailed  strangers  until  the  lazy  lookers-on  wake  up  some 
day  and  find  that  they  are  in  danger  of  being  turned  out  of 
house  and  home  by  these  busy  and  aggressive  emigrants 
from  the  great  hive  of  the  north.  He  goes  to  California 
and  Australia  and  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  he  plunges  into 
dust  and  mud.  doing  all  manner  of  work  in  field  and  mine 
and  shop  and  house  and  street,  until  a  cry  comes  from  the 
idle  and  the  lazy  that  these  filthy  foreigners  are  growing  rich 
while  others  are  poor,  and  they  are  getting  all  the  work 
while  others  have  nothing  to  do. 


WHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  137 

The  Chinaman  is  ready  to  go  to  any  part  of  the  world 
where  there  is  hard  work  to  be  done  and  good  wages  to  be 
given.  While  other  laborers  waste  their  time  in  strikes  and 
cry  themselves  hoarse  in  the  demand  for  more  wages  and 
fewer  hours  of  work  in  the  day,  the  Chinaman  strikes  hard 
blows  with  spade  and  hammer  and  axe,  and  pockets  the 
money  which  idlers  will  not  take  unless  it  is  more.  So  the 
Chinaman  gets  rich  all  the  time  on  wages  which  others  say 
are  not  enough  for  beer  and  tobacco  for  themselves,  to  say 
nothing  of  food  and  clothes  for  wives  and  children.  The 
Chinaman's  theory  of  work  and  wages  is  one  which  does  not 
need  to  be  written  out  in  books  and  discussed  in  newspapers 
and  popular  assemblies.  His  first  and  last  rule  is  to  take 
the  work  which  first  comes  to  hand  and  accept  the  wages 
offered,  and  so  to  adjust  the  profit  and  loss  of  trade  as  to 
come  out  with  a  margin  of  gain  in  the  worst  times. 

I  should  be  very  sorry  to  have  our  American  laborers 
reduced  to  the  low  standard  of  wages  which  the  Chinaman 
accepts,  or  the  low  standard  of  honor  and  honesty  which 
the  Chinaman  approves.  But  I  do  think  that  they  might 
learn  something  for  their  advantage  if  they  would  imitate 
the  Chinaman  in  improving  present  opportunities  while  wait- 
ing for  better.  Let  them  give  more  attention  to  profitable 
work  than  to  empty  words  of  complaint.  Let  them  act  with 
energy  and  decision  in  the  shop  and  the  field,  rather  than 
debate  and  theorize  in  the  clubhouse  or  the  barroom. 
There  is  always  work  enough  for  those  who  arc  willing  to  do 
it,  rather  than  spend  time  in  wrangle  and  debate.  There  is 
always  wages  enough  for  those  who  do  their  work  so  well 
that  their  employers  cannot  afford  to  do  without  them.     The 


138  MORNIXG  LIGHT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

Chinaman  grows  rich  when  others  starve  ;  he  lives  and 
prospers  when  others  fail  and  die,  simply  because  he  is  quick 
and  keen  in  availing  himself  of  every  present  opportunity 
without  wasting  time  in  waiting  for  better  times  to  come. 
His  mind  is  always  bent  upon  securing  material  and  worldly 
advantages  alone.  Perhaps  for  that  reason  he  is  more  apt 
to  succeed  upon  his  low  standard  of  success.  But  others, 
who  are  just  as  worldly  and  selfish  as  he,  fail  because  they 
cannot  get  at  once  all  they  want,  or  because  they  give  them- 
selves up  to  theories  of  work  and  wages,  while  in  practice 
they  lose  both.  Let  the  American  laborer  imitate  the 
Chinaman  in  accepting  the  work  and  the  wages  which  come 
first  to  hand  while  he  is  looking  for  better ;  let  him  do  his 
work  so  well  that  employers  cannot  carry  on  business  profit- 
ably without  him,  and  then  he  will  soon  command  such 
wages  as  the  Chinaman  never  receives,  and  he  will  stand  in 
such  honor  and  independence  before  the  world  as  none  but 
American  citizens  and  laborers  can  attain. 

We  can  learn  from  the  Chinaman  to  carry  our  religion 
everywhere  and  into  everything,  and  never  be  ashamed  to 
show  what  we  believe  or  to  do  what  is  right.  We  can 
learn  from  him  to  make  our  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  unseen 
and  spiritual  world  and  in  the  binding  force  of  religious  duty 
the  one  most  acknowledged  and  influential  law  of  our  life. 
The  Chinaman's  religion  is  indeed  very  poor  and  unsatisfac- 
tory at  the  best.  It  gives  him  no  courage  in  danger,  no 
comfort  in  aflfliction,  no  hope  in  death.  When  heart  and 
flesh  fail  and  all  earthly  things  are  gliding  from  his  grasp, 
his  religion  is  a  trouble  and  a  terror  to  him  rather  than  a 
strong  consolation  and  a  victorious  hope.     It  is  hardly  worth 


WHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US? 


139 


being  called  a  religion  at  all.  It  gives  no  revelation  of  the 
one  infinite  and  everlasting  God,  the  Father  of  mercies  who 
pours  out  his  heart  in  lovingkindness  over  all  his  earthly- 
children.  It  does  not  make  known  the  origin,  the  duty,  or 
the  destiny  of  man.  It  does  not  tell  the  doubting  what  to 
believe,  nor  the  inquiring  what  to  do,  nor  the  aflfiicted  in 
what  to  trust,  nor  the  dying  where  to  rest  their  hope.  It  is 
a  strange  mixture  of  Confucianism,  which  is  a  philosophy, 
and  of  Buddhism,  which  is  a  superstition,  and  of  the  traditions 
and  customs  which  prevailed  in  the  land  long  before  Con- 
fucius or  Buddha  were  known  to  the  world.  But  such  as  it 
is,  the  Chinaman  takes  it  to  heart  and  carries  it  with  him 
everywhere  and  associates  it  openly  with  all  the  affairs  of 
his  daily  life. 

In  accordance  with  the  instructions  and  the  usages  of  his 
religion,  the  Chinaman  sets  up  a  tablet  to  his  dead  father  in 
his  house,  and  he  thinks  the  spirit  of  the  departed  one  is 
ever  hovering  near  the  sacred  symbol,  observing  all  the  con- 
duct and  hearing  all  the  words  of  the  family.  He  sets  up 
another  tablet  at  the  grave,  and  there  he  thinks  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  gather  to  receive  the  offerings  which  he  brings 
them  to  show  them  honor,  and  to  give  them  rest  in  their 
mysterious  habitation  of  darkness.  The  whole  visible  world 
to  him  is  full  of  unseen  powers,  spirits,  intelligences,  that  are 
ever  observing  his  conduct  and  ruling  his  destiny.  Spirits 
in  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  spirits  in  the  clouds  and 
winds  and  rain  and  thunder,  spirits  in  the  earthquakes  and 
eclipses  and  storms,  spirits  in  the  mountains  and  hills  and 
rivers  and  seas,  spirits  in  the  months  and  seasons  of  the  year, 
and  in  all  the  productions  of  the  earth.     He  recognizes  their 


140  MOKyiNG   LIG//T  IN  Af.LVY  LANDS. 

presence  and  pays  them  homage  everywhere.  All  the 
operations  and  phenomena  of  nature  are  the  evidences 
to  him  of  the  presence  and  efificiency  of  spiritual  powers 
which  he  must  revere  and  propitiate  if  he  would  escape 
disaster  and  death.  When  on  the  seas,  he  casts  offer- 
ings into  the  deep  and  hangs  out  flags  inscribed  with 
prayers  as  streamers  in  the  wind,  to  appease  the  spirits  of 
the  storm  and  to  bring  fair  weather.  On  land,  the  fields 
and  walks  and  highways  and  gardens,  the  trees  and  wells 
and  fountains,  are  all  set  with  symbols  of  the  Chinaman's 
faith  in  the  reality  and  power  of  the  unseen  world  by  which 
he  is  always  surrounded  and  under  the  shadow  of  which  he 
is  always  walking. 

He  builds  temples  on  the  high  places  of  the  hills  that 
they  may  be  seen  afar  as  signals  of  the  continual  worship 
which  he  offers  to  heaven.  He  carves  out  caves  in  the  rocks 
of  the  mountains  that  the  spirits  which  dwell  in  the  deep 
places  of  the  earth  may  hear  his  voice  in  worship  and  smell 
the  odor  of  the  incense  which  he  burns.  He  keeps  the 
smoke  of  sacrifice  ascending  all  day  from  the  door  of  the 
shop  where  he  trades,  from  the  border  of  the  field  where  he 
plows  and  sows  and  gathers  the  harvest.  And  the  same 
sign  of  his  faith  is  in  the  schoolroom  where  his  boys  are 
learning  to  read,  on  the  bench  where  his  apprentices  are 
learning  to  work,  by  the  chair  of  state  where  the  judge  sits 
to  administer  justice.  The  joss  stick  must  be  kept  burning 
on  the  river  craft  of  the  boatman,  on  the  junk  and  sampan 
of  the  fisherman  off  the  coast,  in  the  stifling  den  of  the 
opium-smoker,  and  on  the  pictured  stage  of  the  theater  in 
the  city  and  among  the  divining  rods  of  the  gambler  in  the 


WHAT   CAN  CHINA    TEACH   US?  141 

street.  The  purchase  of  a  house,  the  start  on  a  journey,  the 
visit  of  the  physician,  the  marriage  of  a  son,  the  burial  of 
a  father  must  all  be  accompanied  with  religious  rites  and 
acts  of  worship. 

To  us  the  rites  seem  ignorant,  unfitting,  and  absurd  ;  but 
to  the  Chinaman  they  are  recognitions  of  the  reality  and 
the  power  of  the  unseen  world  ;  they  are  confessions  that 
man  was  made  to  be  religious,  made  to  believe  in  spiritual 
powers  above  him,  and  to  be  always  acting  as  in  the  presence 
of  things  unseen  by  the  bodily  eye,  and  yet  more  real  and 
lasting  and  mighty  than  the  earth  on  which  we  tread  and  the 
possessions  for  which  we  toil.  The  Chinaman  is  not  ashamed 
to  say  all  that,  to  do  all  that,  in  his  poor,  blind  way.  He 
would  sooner  be  ashamed  of  anything  else  than  of  his  reli- 
gion. He  has  never  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  an  infidel,  an 
unbeliever,  an  agnostic,  an  atheist.  He  does  not  suppose  it 
possible  for  a  man  to  live  without  religion.  Even  the  great 
Chinese  philosopher,  Confucius,  who  cared  very  little  for 
anything  beyond  this  present  world,  could  not  tear  from  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  his  countrymen  the  faith  they  had  then 
and  have  still  in  the  reality  of  the  unseen  world  and  the  des- 
tiny that  awaits  all  men  beyond  this  life.  He  had  to  let 
them  alone  in  that  faith  in  order  to  get  their  attention  to  his 
maxims  of  prudence  and  worldly  wisdom. 

Confucius  has  been  dead  nearly  twenty-five  hundred  years. 
His  whole  teaching  was  to  show  men  how  to  preserve  order 
in  human  society  and  secure  prosperity  in  this  world,  and 
yet,  contrary  to  his  instructions,  the  Chinese  to-day  worship 
him  as  a  god  simply  because  they  must  have  something  to 
worship.     Stolid  and    indifferent    and    reckless    of   life   and 


142  MO R XING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

death  as  they  seem  to  be,  they  cannot  live  without  a  relii^ion. 
And  they  give  a  vast  amount  of  time  and  labor  and  money 
for  their  religion,  poor  as  it  is.  It  never  enters  their  minds 
that  they  should  be  ashamed  of  their  faith  or  of  the  sacri- 
fices which  they  offer.  They  take  it  for  granted  that  it  is 
just  as  proper  and  natural  and  becoming  for  a  man  to  wor- 
ship, to  be  religious,  as  it  is  for  him  to  eat  or  sleep.  The 
birds  fly  in  the  air  and  the  fish  swim  in  the  sea  and  the  wild 
beast  ranges  the  forest  and  the  plain  because  it  is  their 
nature  so  to  do.  So  man,  in  obedience  to  the  higher  laws 
of  his  being,  must  just  as  naturally  worship,  believe  in  the 
reality  of  spiritual  powers,  look  for  the  guidance  and  help  of 
a  Being  his/her  and  miirhtier  than  himself. 

So  much  can  the  poor  Chinaman  teach  us,  and  so  teaching 
can  put  us  to  shame  if  we  are  ever  ashamed  of  our  beautiful, 
blessed,  and  holy  religion.  It  is  one  of  the  strangest,  the 
most  unreasonable,  most  unbecoming  manifestations  of 
character  in  our  Christian  land  that  anybody  should  be 
ashamed  to  say  and  to  show,  on  all  fitting  occasions,  that  he 
is  a  Christian.  The  Hindus  and  Chinese  all  take  it  for 
granted  that  everybody  in  this  land  is  a  Christian.  They 
think  it  all  a  matter  of  course  that  it  should  be  so.  Sur- 
rounded as  we  all  are  every  day  of  our  lives  by  the  ten 
thousand  blessings  of  Christianity,  the  arts,  the  inventions, 
the  riches,  the  education,  the  freedom,  the  power,  the  immor- 
tal hopes  of  our  holy  religion,  the  Chinaman,  the  Hindu,  does 
not  see  how  we  can  be  anything  else  than  Christians.  An/i 
they  think  it  best  for  us,  for  them,  and  the  world  that  wo 
shall  be  worthy  of  the  name  and  firm  in  our  faith.  Manv 
times    I    asked   the    Hindu  and  the  Buddhist  if  they  would 


WHAT   CAN   CHINA    TEACH   US?  1 43 

advise  me  to  bring  their  religion  to  America  and  teach  it  to 
the  people  of  this  land.  They  always  said,  No.  They  took 
it  for  granted  that  everybody  here  must  be  a  Christian, 
ought  to  be  a  Christian.  They  thought  there  must  be  some- 
thing very  wrong,  very  strange,  very  much  out  of  the  way, 
if  in  this  land  of  ours  any  one  can  be  found  who  is  not  a 
Christian. 

The  men  of  the  East  are  right  in  so  judging.  In  the 
minds  of  millions  of  the  heathen  on  the  other  side  of  the 
globe  the  name  Christian  stands  for  everything  that  blesses 
the  poor,  comforts  the  sorrowing,  beautifies  character,  builds 
the  waste  places  of  the  earth,  and  gives  hope  to  the  world. 
They  ascribe  to  Christianity  the  power,  the  arts,  the  inven- 
tions, the  science,  the  riches,  the  culture,  the  civilization,  the 
happiness,  and  the  prosperity  of  western  nations.  Many  of 
them  already  believe  that  Christianity  is  to  supplant  all  other 
religions  and  eventually  to  possess  all  nations.  The  excuse 
which  many  of  the  heathen  make  for  not  taking  it  to  heart 
is  that  it  is  too  high  and  pure  and  exacting  for  them  :  they 
cannot  attain  unto  it.  And  here  in  our  own  land  we  have 
better  evidences  of  its  divine  purity  and  its  redeeming  power 
than  the  most  intelligent  heathen  know.  We  see  the 
humanizing,  purifying,  uplifting  power  of  the  gospel  every- 
where, even  among  those  who  do  not  obey  its  commands.  It 
blesses  all,  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  every  moment.  Take 
away  all  which  it  has  brought  to  our  land,  and  our  homes 
would  be  like  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  which  are  full  of 
the  habitations  of  cruelty,  full  of  specters  and  shadows  and 
demons  which  men  worship  in  fear  and  horror  all  the  days 
of   their   lives.      I    have    seen    the    dark   habitations    where 


144  MORNING   LIGHT   IX  MAW  L.4NDS. 

millions  live  in  the  populous  East ;  I  have  looked  into  the 
depressed  and  hopeless  faces  of  the  multitudes  that  throng 
the  streets  of  the  great  towns  and  cities  ;  I  have  looked  out 
upon  the  fields  where  laborers  toil  under  the  shadow  of  grim 
idols  and  in  perpetual  fear  that  malignant  spirits  will  disap- 
point the  hope  of  harvest,  —  and  I  come  home  with  a  deeper 
feeling  of  wonder  and  sorrow  than  I  ever  had  before,  that  any- 
body in  this  land,  this  dear,  blessed  land  of  America,  should 
be  ashamed  of  Christ,  or  should  hesitate  to  say  that  in  the 
gospel  of  Christ  we  are  to  look  for  the  Desired  of  all  nations 
and  the  Hope  of  the  world.  Multitudes  of  the  heathen  have 
learned  enough  of  Christianity  to  know  that  those  who 
receive  its  spirit  and  obey  its  instructions  are  bound  to 
make  it  known  to  all  mankind.  If  I  could  gather  up  the 
millions  of  voices  of  all  the  East  and  pour  them  forth  in  one 
supplicating  cry,  loud  enough  for  all  in  my  native  land  to 
hear,  I  would  say,  "Fulfill  that  just  interpretation  of  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel  which  the  heathen  have  learned  to  make, 
accept  and  honor  your  high  commission  to  disciple  all 
nations,  secure  the  greatest  blessings  to  yourselves  by  giving 
the  best  you  have  to  those  wlio  have  them  not." 


XII. 


THE    COMMON    PEOPLE    OF    THE    EAST. 

A  TANY  travelers  visit  the  East  and  come  home  and  say 
-'-'-'-  they  have  been  there  and  know  all  about  it,  when  in 
fact  they  know  very  little  about  the  undercurrent  of  thought 
among  the  rich  and  educated  :  much  less  do  they  know  about 
the  underlying  life  of  the  poor  and  ignorant  that  make  up 
the  great  mass  of  the  native  population.  They  are  to  be 
seen  everywhere  in  city  and  country,  in  street  and  field,  in 
shop  and  house  and  home,  in  temple  and  bazar  and  boat. 
They  flow,  a  living  current,  through  the  broad  and  narrow 
streets  ;  they  are  crowded  like  cattle  in  the  third-class  cars  of 
the  railway  train  ;  they  trot  along  the  highways  with  burdens 
on  their  heads  ;  they  cut  the  wild  grass  on  the  banks  of  the 
roads  and  the  borders  of  the  fields  ;  they  climb  the  tall  palms  ; 
they  gather  about  temples  and  tanks  and  places  of  pilgrim- 
age ;  they  lie  sleeping  in  the  sun  on  the  ground  at  noon,  and 
they  find  the  same  lowly  bed  under  the  dews  of  night.  Pic- 
tures of  everyday  life  in  the  East  must  giv^e  the  lights  and  the 
shades,  the  foreground  and  the  broad  spaces,  to  the  common 
people.  It  is  not  once  in  a  thousand  miles  of  travel  in  India 
that  one  can  see  a  great  rajah  mounted  on  his  elephant 
with  footmen  and  outriders  clearing  the  way  before  him,  or 
seated  in  his  hall  of  audience,  clad  in  purple,  flashing  with 
diamonds,  girt  with  turbaned  guards,  and  bringing  to  mind 
the  glory  and  the  guilt  of  the  great  moguls.     But  the  poor 

145 


146  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

are  everywhere,  darkening  every  landscape  with  their  sad 
looks,  offsetting  the  magnificence  of  temjDles  and  palaces 
and  tombs  with  their  poverty  and  misery.  Excursionists 
and  pleasure  seekers,  who  have  been  around  the  globe  on 
swift  steamers  and  fast  trains,  have  seen  multitudes  of 
dark  faces  and  scanty  costumes  ;  but  they  learn  very  little 
about  the  real  life  that  the  people  lead  in  their  wretched 
homes,  still  less  of  the  fear,  the  ignorance,  the  hopelessness, 
and  the  superstition  that  brood  over  the  minds  of  millions 
in  the  East. 

After  many  months  of  time  and  many  thousand  miles  of 
travel,  and  much  help  from  the  best  of  interpreters,  I  could 
get  only  some  faint  glimpses  at  the  inner  life  of  the  people 
in  India.  It  is  only  such  impressions  that  I  propose  to  give. 
If  there  be  dark  shades  in  the  picture  which  I  hold  up  to 
view,  I  can  only  say  that  no  truthful  representation  can  be 
anything  else  than  dark.  Perhaps  the  darkness  appears  the 
deeper  because  the  light  is  beginning  to  shine  on  the  thick 
clouds  which  cast  their  shadows  upon  the  homes  and  the 
pathways  of  the  people  of  the  East.  It  is  much  to  save  us 
from  utter  discouragement  that  wise  men,  who  have  stood 
face  to  face  with  the  great  darkness  in  those  lands  for  years, 
are  full  of  hope,  and  they  are  looking  for  the  coming  of  a 
kingdom  of  righteousness  and  prosperity  and  peace  to  sup- 
plant the  long,  cruel  reign  of  poverty  and  ignorance  and 
wrong.  It  is  much  that  the  men  who  know  the  East  best 
are  most  strongly  assured  in  hope  of  the  coming  of  a  better 
day,  and  they  see  the  signs  of  its  approach  all  round  the  sky. 

It  is  impossible  for  one  who  was  born  in  America,  and  who 
has  never  been  beyond  the  boundaries  of  his  native  land,  to 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OF   THE   EAST. 


H7 


conceive  the  ignorance,  the  superstition,  the  poverty,  and  the 
degradation  of  the  common  people  in  the  East.  Poetry  has 
dowered  that  far-off  and  mystic  land  with  pearl  and  gold. 
It  has  clothed  its  mountains  in  the  morning  with  purple,  and 
covered  its  plains  with  the  dazzling  splendors  of  noon,  and 
curtained  all  with  the  glory  of  sunset  skies  and  starry  nights. 
It  has  built  halls  and  thrones  and  palaces  of  surpassing 
beauty  for  its  princes.  It  has  made  the  life  of  the  poor  one 
long  holiday  of  basking  in  the  genial  sun  and  singing  in  the 
gentle  moonlight,  and  taking  such  food  and  dress  as  kindly 
nature  gives,  without  care  or  labor,  as  she  gives  to  the  birds 
that  sow  not  and  to  the  beasts  that  never  gather  into  barns. 
The  poets  of  fancy  have  done  all  that  for  the  commonplace, 
everyday  life  of  the  East,  and  the  poets  of  faith  have  done 
much  more  than  that  for  the  religious  life.  They  have  made 
the  highest  possible  attainment  of  man  to  consist  in  sinkino- 

o 

into  a  passionless,  dreamless  slumber  —  a  sleep  of  endless 
years  which  shall  never  be  broken  by  hope  or  fear,  thought 
or  desire,  effort  or  aspiration.  These  poetical  rhapsodists, 
who  make  Sakya  Muni  the  great  light  of  Asia  and  all 
the  East,  comfort  the  weary  worker  in  the  rice  field  and 
the  famishing  dwellers  in  mud  cabins  with  the  hope  that 
they  may  come  to  that  blessed  Nirvana  of  nothingness,  that 
everlasting  sleep  of  Buddha,  if  they  bear  their  burdens  in 
patience  and  wait  for  the  great  consummation.  Some  have 
even  gone  so  far  as  to  attempt  to  show  that  the  intense  and 
fervid  life  of  the  West  would  be  greatly  improved  if  it  could 
be  rounded  with  the  dreamless  sleep  of  the  slumberous 
East. 

Now,  laying  aside  all  such  ingenious  fancies  of  the  poets 


148  MOKN/MG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

and  all  similar  fables  of  a  glory  long  gone  by,  I  tried  hard 
and  long  to  find  out  the  actual  life  of  labor  and  feeling  and 
thought  which  is  led  by  the  millions  of  the  East.  I  could 
not  speak  their  language,  but  I  could  look  on  and  listen  and 
ask  of  those  who  knew  best  what  I  wanted  to  know.  I 
taxed  my  kind  friends,  who  had  lived  long  in  the  country 
and  knew  the  people  well,  with  my  importunities  ;  but  their 
patience  was  equal  to  the  task,  and  they  never  came  short  in 
giving  the  information  which  I  desired  to  gather.  I  traveled 
miles  and  miles  in  the  crowded  streets  of  the  great  cities 
and  the  close-packed  villages  of  India  and  China  and  Japan, 
in  company  with  men  who  had  for  years  made  a  conscien- 
tious study  of  the  inner  and  the  outer  life  of  the  people  in 
order  to  relieve  the  necessities  of  both  body  and  mind.  I 
asked  questions  all  the  time  about  the  purpose  of  everything 
that  I  saw  and  the  meaning  of  everything  I  heard.  I  must 
have  seen  millions  of  the  common  people  face  to  face  in  the 
course  of  the  year  that  I  was  among  them ;  for  the  streets 
were  always  full,  the  lanes  and  footpaths  were  crowded,  and 
the  living  tide  flowed  like  the  river  that  never  rests. 

I  made  a  constant  study  of  the  people,  their  looks,  their 
attitudes,  their  dress  and  their  want  of  dress,  the  work  they 
were  doing,  the  burdens  they  carried,  the  tone  of  voice  with 
which  they  called  to  each  other,  and  the  spirit  or  the  listless- 
ness  with  which  they  entered  into  their  daily  tasks.  I  saw 
them  in  the  rice  fields  wading  half  knee-deep,  preparing  the 
ground  for  sowing,  stirring  up  the  sticky  mass  of  earth  and 
water  with  their  own  feet,  or  driving  a  buffalo  with  a  rude 
harrow  attached  to  the  laboring  animal,  and  the  men  and  the 
beast  equally  black,  besmeared,  and  naked.     I  saw  women 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OE   THE   EAST.  1 49 

creeping  on  hands  and  knees  in  mud  and  water  six  inches 
deep,  weeding  the  rows  of  rice,  and  the  mud  had  been  made 
by  mingling  sewage  from  the  city  with  the  earth  of  the  field. 
I  saw  women  with  four  rings  in  each  ear,  one  in  the  nose, 
and  a  dozen  on  the  neck,  wrists,  ankles,  and  toes,  gathering 
offal  in  the  streets,  carrying  sewage  in  large  buckets  miles 
into  the  country  to  enrich  the  ground  where  the  rice  grew. 
I  saw  men  coming  into  cities  and  villages  at  evening,  carry- 
ing on  their  heads  bundles  of  weeds  and  coarse  grass  which 
they  had  been  all  day  gathering  by  the  roadside  and  in 
unoccupied  fields.  I  did  not  need  to  know  the  language 
of  the  people  to  understand  with  what  spirit  they  did  such 
work. 

I  saw  the  miserable  mud  houses  in  which  millions  of  the 
people  lived,  the  mud  floors  upon  which  they  slept,  the  hard 
blocks  of  wood  which  they  used  for  pillows,  the  palm  or  rush 
mat  which  they  spread  over  them  for  a  blanket  in  the  chilly 
night.  In  the  narrow  streets  of  towns  and  on  the  muddy 
banks  of  streams,  I  saw  thousands  of  children  with  no  cloth- 
ing at  all,  looking  as  if  they  never  knew  what  it  was  to  play, 
staring  at  me  with  wild,  wondering  eyes  as  if  I  were  some 
fabled  monster  that  they  had  seen  pictured  on  the  walls  of 
temples  and  tombs.  I  saw  thousands  of  men  working  in 
their  fields  with  tools  so  heavy  and  clumsy  that  it  was  a 
wonder  to  me  that  they  could  make  the  ground  yield  half  a 
crop  under  such  tillage.  In  many  places  when  the  grain  was 
grown,  it  was  a  contest  between  the  cultivators  and  the 
beasts  which  should  have  it.  Men  were  raised  up  on  scaffold- 
ing above  the  millet  and  the  wheat,  watching  the  grain, 
scaring  away  the  birds  by  slinging  stones  or  balls  of  mud. 


150  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

The  birds  were  very  little  frightened,  for  they  knew  that 
none  of  them  would  be  killed.  Even  the  deadly  cobra  might 
cross  the  everyday  paths  of  the  people  and  creep  into  the 
mud  houses  where  they  slept  without  danger  to  itself,  for 
its  life  was  esteemed  more  sacred  than  the  life  of  a  man. 
Riding  in  cars  in  India  I  ran  my  eye  over  millions  of  acres 
of  land  covered  with  full-grown  wheat  that  was  but  two  feet 
high,  and  wild  deer  were  feeding  it  down  with  nobody  to 
drive  them  away.  Indian  corn  was  sometimes  growing 
beside  the  wheat,  but  the  thin  soil  and  the  surface  plowing 
produced  only  a  yellow  and  a  sickly  growth,  and  many  spin- 
dling stalks  stood  up  straight  and  slim  with  no  sign  of  ears. 
I  was  constantly  surprised  to  find  that  so  large  a  portion  of 
the  cultivated  ground  yielded  so  meager  a  harvest  to  reward 
the  laborer  for  his  toil. 

I  saw  men  climbing  palm  trees  fifty  feet  high  to  bring 
down  sap  in  a  bucket,  each  man  climbing  forty  trees  to  that 
height  every  morning  and  the  same  number  at  evening,  and 
getting  eight  cents  a  day  for  the  toil.  I  met  men  running  on 
the  public  road  at  night,  carrying  the  mail  on  their  heads  with 
a  lantern  in  one  hand  and  with  the  other  shakin^j:  a  strins:  of 
bells  to  scare  away  the  deadly  serpents  that  lie  in  the  track. 
The  man  runs  at  the  rate  of  a  quick  trot  for  a  traveling 
horse ;  he  keeps  on  the  road  for  many  hours,  and  when  he 
gets  through,  his  pay  for  fifty  miles  of  service  would  not  get 
him  the  simplest  meal  at  an  American  restaurant.  I  saw  men 
dragging  fine  nets  through  muddy  tanks  and  pools  and  deep 
ditches  in  the  rice  fields,  hoping  to  catch  minims  an  inch  long 
and  little  bigger  than  a  knitting-needle,  and  with  that  small 
fry  to  make  their  one  meal  for  a  day. 


THE    COMMO.V  PEOPLE    OF   THE   EAST.  151 

I  visited  the  villages  of  some  of  the  lowest  castes  —  the 
scavengers  and  the  gatherers  of  offal,  the  carrion-eaters  and 
the  outcasts.  I  tried  to  find  out  what  they  thought  of  life, 
and  whether  they  had  any  hope  of  ever  rising  above  the 
wretched  condition  into  which  they  had  been  born. 
They  always  said  they  were  made  for  just  the  life  they  were 
leading,  and  they  were  good  for  nothing  else.  It  required 
great  faith  in  humanity  not  to  believe  them  when  they 
said  so.  They  did  not  want  any  school ;  they  did  not  wish  to 
learn  to  read  :  they  only  asked  to  be  permitted  to  do  the 
lowest  and  filthiest  work  for  the  least  pay,  and  then  be  left 
to  wallow  in  the  mire  with  the  beasts  that  perish.  All  over 
the  East  the  feeling  and  the  faith  prevail  with  all  classes 
of  the  poor  and  the  depressed  that  they  are  fated  to  live 
just  as  they  do.  They  were  born  with  their  destiny  written 
on  their  forehead,  and  no  hand  of  man  can  blot  out  what 
the  finger  of  fate  has  written. 

In  Benares  and  Moradabad  and  Peshawar  and  Rawal  Pindi 
and  Calcutta  I  looked  into  the  shops  and  saw  the  poor 
artisans  sitting  half  naked  on  the  ground,  bending  over  a 
handful  of  burning  charcoal,  producing  in  some  cases  the 
finest  work,  but  with  the  clumsiest  tools  and  with  the  longest 
time  spent  upon  the  task.  I  saw  weavers  bringing  forth  from 
their  rude  looms  the  most  beautiful  fabrics  of  silk,  embroi- 
deries that  gave  the  most  delicate  shadings  to  figures  of  birds 
and  flowers  ;  and  yet  the  men  were  working  in  dark,  floorless 
cabins,  and  getting  only  a  few  cents  for  the  day's  labor.  I 
met  a  few  of  them  in  a  little,  floorless  room  that  served  them 
for  a  schoolhouse.  They  crouched  upon  the  ground  and 
rested  a  few  moments  from  their  labor  while  I   told  them 


152  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

something  about  America  and  how  much  laborers  received 
for  a  day's  work  with  us  and  what  kind  of  houses  working- 
men  live  in  here.  They  listened  with  looks  of  mingled  won- 
der and  incredulity,  and  I  was  in  doubt  whether  they  under- 
stood what  was  said  or  believed  it  if  they  did.  When  I  told 
them  that  the  Bible,  the  sacred  Book  which  the  missionaries 
had  brought  to  India,  had  given  us  all  a  great  hope  in  this 
land  and  had  brought  us  the  best  things  we  had  in  America, 
they  did  not  look  as  if  they  thought  the  sacred  Book  would 
do  as  much  for  them  as  I  said  it  had  done  for  us.  It  never 
seemed  to  occur  to  them  that  their  lot  could  be  any  better 
than  it  was. 

The  hopelessness  of  the  life  which  millions  lead  in  the 
East  is  written  upon  their  faces.  Notwithstanding  their 
apparent  contentment  with  their  lot,  or  at  least  their  sub- 
mission to  it,  the  common  people  looked  to  me  saddened  and 
depressed.  They  seldom  laugh ;  do  not  even  smile.  I  never 
saw  children  engaged  in  any  kind  of  play  which  called  forth 
effort  and  shouts  and  laughter,  unless  they  had  been  taught 
the  game  and  urged  to  play  it  by  foreigners.  They  seem  to 
have  no  sense  of  the  ludicrous.  Somebody  tried  to  amuse 
the  natives  by  translating  some  of  the  funniest  things  in 
Gough's  lectures  into  Tamil.  But  the  people  could  see 
nothing  in  them  to  laugh  at.  They  read  them  as  solemnly 
as  they  would  read  the  funeral  service.  Neither  in  public 
speaking  nor  in  private  conversation  do  they  say  anything 
that  provokes  a  smile. 

Meeting  such  people  by  the  thousand  in  the  street,  looking 
into  their  solemn  faces,  seeing  the  burdens  they  carried,  the 
scanty  clothing  they  wore,  knowing  how  meager  the  subsist- 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OF   THE  EAST. 


153 


ence  by  which  they  lived  and  the  little  pay  they  got  for  their 
labor  and  the  impassable  wall  of  caste  by  which  they  were 
hemmed  in  on  every  side,  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  thev 
must  be  unhappy.  They  seemed  to  me  bowed  down  and 
broken-hearted  by  their  hard  lot,  and  only  waiting,  in  despair 
of  anything  better,  for  death  to  come  and  take  them  out  of 
the  world.  I  tried  every  way  I  could  to  get  into  their  inner 
life,  to  learn  their  daily  round  of  thought  and  speech.  I 
wanted  to  know  what  joys  or  sorrows  they  had,  what  hopes  or 
fears  they  entertained,  so  that  I  could  make  up  my  mind 
whether  they  were  really  as  unhappy  as  they  looked  to  be, 
whether  they  had  any  desire  or  aspiration  for  a  better  lot  than 
that  into  which  they  had  been  born. 

Of  course  I  could  not  go  very  far  in  my  inquiries  in  that 
direction.  My  life  had  been  so  little  like  theirs  that  I  could 
not  stand  in  their  place  and  look  out  upon  the  world  as  they 
saw  it.  I  could  not  discover  that  the  common  people  knew 
or  cared  very  much  about  what  was  written  in  their  sacred 
books  as  the  symbols  of  their  faith.  They  simply  observed 
customs  and  superstitions  which  had  come  down  to  them  from 
their  fathers.  The  only  reason  they  could  give  for  anything 
they  did  or  believed  was  that  their  fathers  did  and  believed 
thus  in  their  day.  In  my  inquiries  I  was  dependent  upon 
interpreters  whom  the  natives  possibly  might  not  always 
understand,  or  upon  the  imperfect  English  sometimes  spoken 
by  the  low-class  people  themselves.  So  far  as  question  and 
answer  could  bring  out  anything,  I  did  not  find  them  as 
unhappy  or  discontented  with  their  lot  as  I  supposed  they 
would  be,  and  even  ought  to  be.  I  knew  that  I  could 
not    live    submissively  in    their    condition    without    having, 


^54 


MO  KEYING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


either  the  loftiest  faith  in  God  and  in  the  better  life  to  come, 
or  else  a  wild  and  frantic  resistance  to  the  chain  that  bound 
me.  But  they  had  neither  the  faith  nor  the  feeling  of  resist- 
ance to  their  hard  lot.  They  did,  however,  have  sensibility 
enough  to  feel  that  their  lot  in  life  was  hard  and  their  path- 
way very  dark ;  and  they  looked  up  with  a  vague  and 
passive  wonder  that  the  world  had  nothing  better  for  them. 
But  in  all  the  traditions,  changes,  customs,  and  religious  faith 
of  their  land,  they  could  not  see  one  ray  of  hope  that  they 
could  ever  rise  to  a  truer,  nobler,  better  life.  They  must  be 
poor,  ignorant,  and  bowed  down  all  their  days,  and  when 
death  comes  they  must  welcome  it  as  a  release  from 
miseries  greater  than  death  can  inflict.  They  must  go 
hence  upon  the  pathway  of  darkness  with  the  comfort  that 
it  can  lead  to  nothing  worse  than  life  has  been  to  them  and 
their  fathers.  Neither  the  government  nor  the  religion 
nor  the  philosophy  nor  the  sacred  traditions  of  the  East 
has  ever  done  anything  to  lift  up  the  fallen  or  comfort 
the  sorrowing  or  give  peace  and  immortal  hope  to  the 
dying. 

Most  of  the  people  of  those  distant  lands  have,  however, 
heard  of  late  that  a  great  light  has  risen  upon  the  world  in 
other  nations,  and  that  it  shines  with  especial  blessing  into 
the  homes  of  the  poor  and  it  brings  divine  consolation  to 
the  sorrowing  and  the  broken-hearted.  Most  of  them  in 
some  way  have  heard  of  a  great  and  mighty  Helper  who  has 
come  to  undo  the  burdens  from  the  heavy  laden,  to  give 
rest  to  weary  shoulders  and  peace  to  stricken  hearts.  Some 
of  them  have  been  told  that  gracious  news  many  times  and 
with  great  plainness  and  simplicity.      But  their  poor,  dark- 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OE   THE   EAST. 


155 


ened  minds,  accustomed  only  to  look  at  shadows  and  the 
false  shows  of  things,  can  scarcely  grasp  the  meaning  of  the 
good  tidings,  or  they  think  it  too  good  to  be  true,  or  it 
seems  to  them  so  far  off  that  it  can  never  come  nigh  to 
cheer  and  to  help  them  rise  up  and  walk  in  the  joy  of  a 
new  life  and  the  strength  of  a  new  manhood.  Millions  still 
cling  to  the  despairing  faith  in  which  they  were  born.  They 
still  think  that  it  must  be  the  lot  of  the  poor  and  ignorant 
like  themselves  to  labor  and  hunger  and  suffer  while  they 
live,  and  to  die  without  hope  of  anything  better  beyond 
death. 

When  I  saw  those  people  of  the  East  by  thousands  and  by 
millions  carrying  their  heavy  burdens  without  a  Helper,  wan- 
dering in  darkness  without  a  Guide,  I  thought  it  must  be  the 
most  glorious  and  godlike  mission  ever  given  to  the  nations 
of  the  West  to  lift  up  those  bound  slaves  of  darkness  and 
misery  into  the  light  of  Christian  hope  and  the  joy  of  Chris- 
tian liberty.  With  all  our  arts  and  arms,  all  our  science  and 
civilization,  all  our  command  of  the  resources  of  nature 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  divine  order  of  the  world,  we  can 
achieve  no  higher  victory,  we  can  attain  no  higher  glory,  than 
that  of  extending  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace 
among  the  nations  that  have  been  wasted  with  war  and  dark- 
ened with  superstition  for  ages.  The  first  and  the  most 
obvious  appeal  which  they  make  to  us  for  light  and  hope 
comes  from  their  poverty,  their  degradation,  their  subjection 
to  castes  and  customs  which  have  led  them  captive  for  ages. 
They  are  so  poor  that  an  American  laborer  would  not  think 
he  could  live  a  week  as  they  live  through  all  the  year. 
They  are  so  ignorant  that  the  first  and  simplest  facts  of  life 


156  j/oa'jvlvc  light  in  many  lands. 

and  duty  with  us  are  great  mysteries  to  them.  Tell  them 
things  that  our  children  learn  without  teaching,  and  they 
stare  at  you  with  looks  of  wonder  and  incredulity  that  seem 
to  say,  How  can  such  things  be  ?  They  believe  things 
absurd  and  monstrous  and  impossible,  but  in  the  great  facts 
of  nature  and  reason  and  duty  they  have  no  faith  at  all. 

And  yet  these  degraded  people  of  the  East  are  men  like 
ourselves  —  immortal  men.  They  have  minds  to  think  and 
hearts  to  feel  just  as  we  have.  They  have  the  sense  of  right 
and  the  sting  of  self-reproach  when  they  do  wrong.  They 
know  what  it  is  to  suffer  and  they  would  gladly  know  better 
what  it  is  to  enjoy.  The  food  they  eat  is  of  the  simplest 
kind,  the  smallest  in  amount,  and  the  supply  is  always  uncer- 
tain. The  cruel  fiend  of  famine  is  always  hovering  about 
their  lowly  mud  cabins,  ready  to  come  in  as  an  unbidden 
guest  and  stare  them  in  the  face  with  cold,  cruel  eyes  that 
make  them  go  mad  and  die.  Three  millions  so  died  in  one 
small  section  of  India  in  one  year.  Ten  millions  more  in 
one  province  of  China  perished  for  want  of  food  and  from 
diseases  that  follow  in  the  wake  of  famine.  A  slight  change 
in  the  rainfall  for  a  single  season  will  at  any  time  strew 
the  fields  and  pathways  of  the  East  vvith  the  skeletons  of 
multitudes  who  die  of  want  and  of  the  pestilence  which 
comes  to  glean  in  the  fields  where  death  has  already  gath- 
ered the  harvest  of  millions  of  sheaves  and  left  nothing  but 
stubble  behind. 

Looking  in  the  faces  of  these  poor  people  day  after  day 
and  month  after  month,  I  never  could  cease  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion. What  have  these  poor  shadows  of  humanity  to  live  for  .-' 
What  hope  or  aspiration  or  ambition  can  ever  stir  their  poor 


TIIK    CO.UMOX  PEOPLE    OP   THE   EAST. 


157 


hearts  to  gratitude  or  joy  or  thanksgiving  ?  And  what  is 
life  worth  to  men  who  know  not  what  it  is  to  be  thankful  ? 
It  is  one  of  the  sad  evidences  of  long  ages  of  hardship  and 
oppression  and  despair  in  the  East  that  in  some  of  their 
languages  there  is  no  word  for  gratitude.  The  people  do  not 
know  the  sentiment,  and  so  they  know  no  use  for  the  word 
to  express  it.  What  a  hard  lot  it  must  be  to  toil  along 
the  pathway  of  life,  every  day  carrying  a  burden  which  tasks 
the  utmost  strength,  and  yet  with  no  hope  that  any  kind 
hand  will  lighten  the  load  till  death  comes  and  drops  both 
the  burden  and  the  bearer  into  the  same  grave  !  Millions  of 
people  in  the  East  know  no  better  experience  than  that  all 
their  life  long.  Millions  of  mothers  in  the  East,  instead  of 
rejoicing  over  the  newborn  babe,  only  think,  with  weeping 
that  will  not  be  comforted,  that  one  more  hungry  mouth  has 
come  to  claim  a  share  in  the  food  of  the  family  that  never 
had  enough  to  eat,  one  more  weight  of  sorrow  and  suffering 
has  been  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  parents  who  already  had 
more  than  they  could  carry. 

This  great  want  and  suffering  in  the  lands  of  the  East 
need  not  be,  ought  not  to  be.  It  is  due  to  the  igno- 
rance, the  vice,  and  the  superstition  of  the  people  them- 
selves. It  is  not  because  the  country  is  too  much  crowded 
or  the  natural  resources  are  too  limited  for  the  population. 
In  the  most  thickly  settled  portions  of  the  East,  the  ground, 
under  proper  cultivation,  could  be  made  to  support  many 
times  more  than  the  present  population.  Three  hundred 
millions  of  acres  of  land  in  India  are  cultivated.  Two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-eight  millions  more  are  not  cultivated  at  all. 
The  cultivated  portion  might  be  made  to  produce  manifold 


158  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

more  than  it  does  or  ever  has  done,  if  it  were  in  the  hands 
of  a  free,  intelligent,  and  industrious  people.  The  acre 
which  now  bears  six  bushels  of  wheat  might  just  as  well 
produce  twenty-four.  Trees  in  China,  which  bear  the  crud- 
est and  hardest  fruit,  causing  sickness  and  death  among  the 
people,  might  be  replaced  by  trees  which  would  load  the 
table  with  the  best  of  food  for  old  and  young.  Tools  that 
weary  the  workman  and  waste  his  time  and  strength  and 
material  might  be  exchanged  for  machines  which  would 
increase  the  productions  of  industry  a  hundredfold.  Agri- 
cultural implements  which  only  scratch  the  ground  and  take 
ten  men  to  do  the  work  of  one  might  be  replaced  by  others 
which  would  increase  the  harvest  tenfold  and  relieve  the 
labor  of  human  hands  in  the  same  proportion.  The  duration 
of  life  and  activity  is  shortened,  millions  of  lives  arc  lost, 
by  ignorance  and  reckless  exposure  and  injurious  food. 
Twenty  thousand  natives  are  killed  every  year  in  India  by 
the  bite  of  venomous  snakes  when  not  a  single  foreign  resi- 
dent is  bitten,  just  because  the  natives  are  ignorant  and 
careless  and  superstitious,  and  foreigners  know  how  to  take 
care  of  themselves  and  the  serpents  too.  Millions  of  money 
of  the  poor  are  expended  upon  unprofitable  pilgrimages,  inju- 
rious and  debasing  festivals,  attendance  upon  temples,  altars, 
shrines,  and  idolatrous  sacrifices.  So  the  people  are 
kept  poor,  the  land  is  impoverished,  and  human  life  runs  to 
waste.  Let  Christian  character  and  education  take  the 
place  of  heathen  ignorance  and  superstition,  and  all  the 
waste  lands  of  the  East  will  blossom  as  the  rose. 

The  people  of   the   East    do   not    ordinarily  complain    of 
their  hard  lot,  just  because  they  have  never  seen  or  heard  of 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OF   THE  EAST.  1 59 

anything  better.     They  think  it  has    been  written    in    the 
books  of  eternal  destiny  that  they  shall  be  just  what  they 
are  from  generation  to  generation —toilers  in  the  dust  and 
heat  and  mud,  living  in  earth  cabins  and  going  back  to  the 
dust    of    the    earth    from    which    they  sprang.      Under    the 
native  princes  of  India  the  condition  of  the  common  people 
was  far  worse  than  it  is  now  under  the  English.     They  were 
drafted  into  armies  to  maintain   wars  of  ambition  and  rob- 
bery.    They  were  compelled  to  toil  on  the  temples  and  pal- 
aces and  tombs  of  the  princes,  leaving  their  lands  unculti- 
vated, and  they  received  no  pay  for  the  forced  labor.     They 
were  oppressed  with  all  manner  of  taxes,  forced  loans,  and 
conscriptions.     Their    lands    and    flocks    and    harvests    and 
villages  were  constantly    exposed  to  plunder    and   robbery. 
There  was  no  established  law  or  justice  in  the  land  to  defend 
the  innocent  or  to  punish  the  guilty.     The  man  who  could 
pay  the  largest  bribe  was  sure  to  gain  his  case  before  the 
judge.      Famine    came,    and    there    was    no    relief    for   the 
starving.      Rulers  often  enriched  themselves  by  storing  up 
grain  and  selling  it  at  an  exorbitant   price  to   the   hungry. 
Pestilence  came,  and  there  was  no  medicine  or  nursing  or 
hospitals  for  the  sick  and  dying,  often  no  burial  for  the  dead. 
So  it  was   in   the   days  of    the   great    moguls,   Aurungzebe, 
Jehangir,  Shah  Jehan,  whose  temples  and  palaces  and  tombs 
remain  as  monuments  of  the  riches  they  exacted  from  the 
poor  and  the  victories  they  gained  by  crime. 

Now  under  English  rule  there  are  order  and  justice  and 
peace.  The  peasant  reaps  his  own  harvest,  poor  as  it  is, 
with  none  to  molest  or  make  afraid  ;  the  artisan  enjoys  the 
reward  of  his  own  skill  and  industry  ;  the  coolie  carries  his 


l6o  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

burden  or  runs  on  his  message  and  gets  his  pay  with  no  pub- 
lican to  snatch  it  from  his  hand  in  the  name  of  the  prince. 
Even  the  criminal  is  sure  of  a  fair  trial  in  the  courts,  so  far 
as  it  depends  on  government  and  not  on  native  witnesses, 
who  learned  the  habit  of  lying  under  the  old  order  of 
India's  native  princes.  The  punishment  meted  out  to  the 
transgressor  is  only  the  due  reward  of  his  deeds. 

But  still  to  the  American  traveler  the  condition  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  common  people  in  India  seems  so  utterly 
dark  and  wretched  that  it  saddens  his  heart  every  day  only 
to  look  at  the  multitudes  —  multitudes  in  the  shops  and 
streets  and  fields.  Persons  who  travel  from  mere  curiosity 
may  indeed  have  their  time  and  thoughts  taken  up  with  tem- 
ples and  tombs  and  monuments.  They  may  think  more  of  a 
curious  piece  of  carving  than  of  the  living  man  who  did  the 
work.  They  may  not  mind  much  about  the  people,  unless 
it  be  to  get  pictures  of  their  dresses,  their  houses,  their 
vehicles,  or  specimens  of  their  peculiar  works  of  art.  But 
anybody  who  goes  through  the  countries  of  the  East 
supremely  interested  in  the  condition  and  character  of  the 
living  men  he  sees  there  is  sure  to  have  many  sad  and 
serious  thoughts  on  the  way,  and  to  come  home  constantly 
revolving  the  question,  "  Can  anything  be  done  to  help  those 
ignorant  and  degraded  millions  who  belong  to  the  same 
family  with  us,  and  who  are  born  to  the  same  inheritance  of 
immortality .'' " 

But  we  are  not  to  look  upon  the  hard  lot  of  the  common 
people  in  the  East  with  anything  like  their  feeling  of 
enforced  submission  to  destiny.  They  are  not  fated  so  to 
live,  nor  is  their  seeming  contentment  a  wise  submission  to 


THE    COMMON  PEOPLE    OF   THE  EAST.  l6l 

the  inevitable.  They  can  all  be  raised  up  out  of  their  sad 
state  by  bringing  them  under  the  enlightening,  humanizing, 
Christian  influences  which  have  given  the  American  people 
their  happiness,  their  resources,  and  their  prosperity.  It  has 
taken  a  thousand  years  to  make  us  what  we  are  at  the  best. 
Under  the  superior  advantages  of  this  Christian  age  a 
hundred  years  may  give  the  millions  of  India  all  the  enlight- 
enment and  the  prosperity  which  we  have  attained.  Our 
ancestors  of  the  Saxon  race,  in  the  wilds  of  Britain,  were 
a  more  barbarous  people  than  the  natives  of  India  are 
now.  Christian  education  and  example  can  do  for  the  men 
of  the  East  as  much  as  it  has  ever  done  for  the  men  of 
the  West. 

The  great  labor  and  hope  of  Christian  missionaries  in 
India  and  in  all  the  East  is  to  raise  up  the  millions  of  those 
countries  to  a  new  and  immortal  manhood  by  teaching  them 
the  same  word  of  truth  which  has  given  us  our  superior 
intelligence,  our  strength,  and  our  prosperity.  The  mission- 
aries believe  in  science,  in  education,  in  the  useful  arts,  in 
all  the  means  of  promoting  culture  and  the  highest  civiliza- 
tion ;  but  they  also  believe  that  the  Bible  is  the  first  great 
educator  of  heathen  nations,  and  that  when  its  sacred  lessons 
are  received  to  the  heart  and  brought  out  in  individual  char- 
acter, all  other  improvements  in  arts  and  in  education  and 
social  life  will  follow.  Christianity  has  a  thousand  times 
over  proved  itself  to  be  the  best  enlightener  of  the  ignorant 
and  the  best  friend  of  the  poor.  The  one  living  and  immor- 
tal hope  of  the  gospel  of  Christ  will  give  the  despondent 
and  the  heartbroken  the  highest  incentives  to  improve  their 
condition   in   this   world  and  the  best  preparation    for   the 


I  62  .UOKXI.VG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LAXDS. 

world  to  come.  The  missionaries  believe  that  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  received  as  God's  message  of  salvation  to  all  races  of 
men,  will  be  the  best  means  of  undoing  the  heavy  burdens, 
cheering  the  dark  homes,  lifting  up  the  sad  hearts  of  milli(jns 
of  the  poor  and  the  ignorant  in  the  great  East.  Mission- 
aries feel  themselves  called  to  that  work  of  enlightenment 
and  Christian  instruction  by  commission  from  Him  who  first 
came  to  preach  his  own  gospel  to  the  poor  and  to  bring  in 
the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  We  on  this  side  of  the 
crlobe  can  share  with  them  in  that  work  and  in  its  great 
reward.  We  should  accept  and  improve  the  opportunity  as 
the  greatest  honor  and  privilege  of  life.  And  surely  we 
must  feel  that  the  call  comes  to  us  loud  and  urgent  and 
clear  when  we  look  into  the  depth  of  poverty  and  ignorance 
and  degradation  into  which  the  great  mass  of  the  common 
people  of  the  East  are  pressed  down  to-day.  With  all  our 
bright  hopes  and  grand  expectations  we  are  just  the  people 
to  help  those  who  are  so  utterly  lost  to  all  the  high  attain- 
ments and  experiences  of  humanity  in  this  life  and  still 
more  sadly  and  utterly  lost  to  the  immortal  hope  of  the  life 
to  come. 


XIII. 


FAITH  AND  HOPE  IN  HEATHEN  LANDS. 

T  HAVE  spoken  of  the  physical  condition  of  the  common 
^  people  in  the  East  ;  I  have  given  some  illustrations  of 
their  poverty  and  their  destitution  of  the  chief  comforts  of 
life,  as  seen  by  a  traveler  who  passes  through  their  countries 
and  observes  and  incjuires  and  listens  as  he  goes.  But  the 
sad  outward  state  of  millions  in  the  East  is  the  direct  and 
inevitable  consequence  of  a  deeper  and  darker  degradation 
which  is  upon  the  soul.  If  the  mind  had  not  been  over- 
shadowed with  the  cloud  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  their 
earthly  hopes  would  never  have  been  dark,  and  their  burdens 
would  never  have  been  greater  than  they  could  bear.  I 
tried  hard  to  get  into  the  inner  chambers  of  their  minds 
and  look  out  upon  the  world  as  they  saw  it.  But  I  seemed 
to  myself,  so  far  as  I  succeeded,  to  be  like  one  going  out  of 
the  sunlight  into  a  cave  without  a  candle  or  a  guide.  I 
could  only  grope  my  way  a  little  distance  from  the  light  and 
then  guess  what  was  beyond.  When  I  came  back  from  such 
blind  endeavor  and  found  myself  surrounded  by  the  glori- 
ous light  and  liberty  of  Christian  revelation,  it  seemed  to  me 
like  passing  from  a  night  of  cloud  and  storm  to  a  morning 
of  brightness  and  beauty  on  the  sea. 

In   Southern    India,    in   the    dominions    of    the    rajah    of 
Travancore,  I  turned  aside  from  the  highway  into  the  open 

163 


164  3fORNING   LIGHT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

field  to  look  at  a  Hindu  shrine  which  an  old-time  resident 
told  me  would  show  me  something  worth  seeing  if  I  wanted 
to  know  what  heathenism  is  at  home.  The  shrine  was  made 
like  the  open  porch  of  a  small  house,  covered  with  a  roof, 
yet  all  open  in  front  to  the  light  of  day.  There  were  two 
human  figures  of  life-size  standing  inside  :  one  was  that  of 
a  man,  the  other  of  a  woman.  The  features  of  the  female 
divinity  were  carved  and  painted  into  the  most  horrible 
expression  of  ferocity  and  cruelty.  The  front  teeth  pro- 
truded like  the  tusks  of  a  wild  boar.  Between  the  teeth  was 
the  body  of  an  infant  child  with  the  head  sticking  out  on 
one  side  and  the  feet  on  the  other.  The  monster  was  biting 
the  body  of  the  little  innocent  in  two  in  the  middle.  In  the 
left  hand  of  the  same  figure  was  another  infant  child,  and 
the  right  arm  was  uplifted  with  a  dagger  in  the  hand  in  the 
act  of  plunging  the  weapon  into  the  heart  of  the  child.  At 
the  feet  of  the  grim  idol  were  fresh  flowers,  which  had  been 
brought  there  as  an  offering  that  very  morning.  A  little 
hollow  in  the  stone  floor  had  been  filled  with  oil  and  burned 
in  place  of  incense  to  propitiate  the  demoniac  representation 
of  murder  and  cruelty. 

To  the  poor  people  who  cultivated  the  adjoining  fields 
and  climbed  the  beautiful  palms  that  overshadowed  the 
shrine,  that  horrible  image  stood  for  the  highest  object  of 
worship.  They  thought  it  a  fit  representation  of  the  power 
that  ruled  over  their  destiny  and  determined  the  measure 
of  their  prosperity.  The  health  and  sickness,  the  life  and 
death  of  themselves  and  their  families  were  subject  to  the 
will  of  that  horrible  monster.  Little  children  had  been  led 
there   by  their  mothers   as  devoutly  as  Christian   mothers 


FAITH  AXD   HOPE  LV  HEATHEN  LANDS.  165 

lead  their  children  to  the  house  of  God  in  our  own  land. 
The  little  dark-eyed  heirs  of  Hindu  superstition,  naked  and 
nameless,  had  been  taught  to  kneel  down  with  clasped 
hands  and  upturned  faces  before  the  image  and  present 
the  flowers  as  an  offering  of  fear  and  worship.  They 
had  been  told  that  theirs  would  be  the  fate  of  the  child 
between  the  teeth  of  the  idol  if  they  did  not  pray  and  bring 
offerings  to  the  devourer  of  children,  the  fit  representation 
of  demoniac  cruelty.  It  was  as  if  the  children  of  Jerusalem 
in  the  days  of  Christ  had  been  taught  to  bring  incense  and 
offerings  to  Herod,  the  destroyer,  rather  than  to  the  divine 
Child  in  the  manger  of  Bethlehem.  The  glory  of  the  gods 
of  heathenism  is  to  frighten  the  timid,  deceive  the  ignorant, 
and  destroy  the  defenseless.  The  princes  in  heathen  lands 
take  to  themselves  the  titles  and  attributes  of  gods,  and  they 
too  make  it  their  highest  glory  to  fill  the  world  with  the 
dread  of  their  power  and  the  terror  of  their  name.  Christ 
says,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest."  Christ  takes  little  children  in  his 
arms  and  blesses  them. 

All  over  India  the  imagination  of  children  is  filled  and 
defiled  from  the  earliest  years  with  images  and  tales  and 
traditions  of  cruelty.  They  are  taught  to  believe  that  the 
whole  material  world  about  them  is  filled  with  horrible 
monsters,  hideous  and  malignant  as  that  grim  idol,  and 
always  watching  for  opportunities  to  do  them  harm.  They 
are  terrified  when  they  are  most  susceptible  to  fear  ;  they 
are  deceived  when  they  are  most  willing  to  go  where  they 
are  led.  Their  whole  idea  of  prayer,  worship,  offerings, 
services,   sacrifices,   is  to  escape    the   wrath  of   evil  beings 


i66  j/oA'.v/.VG  LiGirr  ix  a/.lvv  laxds. 

that  haunt  the  trees,  the  fields,  the  fountains,  the  forests, 
the  dark  places  of  the  hills  and  the  deep  places  of  the  sea. 
Children  grow  up  into  a  world  which  they  are  taught  to 
believe  is  under  the  control  of  malignant  spirits,  powers  of 
darkness,  that  delight  in  bringing  misfortunes  and  miseries 
upon  men.  The  days  of  youth,  which  we  try  to  make  bright 
and  beautiful  to  our  children,  are  haunted  with  shapes  oi 
fear  and  horrible  monsters  of  cruelty  to  the  children  of  the 
East.  When  they  are  grown  up  to  manhood,  they  set  grim 
idols  to  overlook  their  fields  and  gardens.  They  pour  water 
and  oil  upon  stones  that  stand  for  vice  and  all  manner  of 
filthy  things ;  they  hang  bits  of  bright  cloth  upon  fruit  trees 
and  along  the  pathways  of  the  fields  and  the  highways  of 
public  travel.  They  go  to  the  great  temples  and  bow  down 
in  worship  before  the  monstrous  images  of  lust  and  cruelty. 
They  do  all  such  things  and  many  more  to  escape  the 
anger  and  the  persecution  of  malignant  beings  that  are  sup- 
posed to  live  in  the  air  and  in  the  sea,  and  who  come  out 
of  their  hiding  places  only  to  plague  and  frighten  and  tor- 
ture men.  So  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  are  still  full  of 
the  habitations  of  cruelty  as  they  were  in  the  Psalmist's  day. 
Heathenism  makes  no  advances  toward  light  and  liberty.  It 
is  no  better  now  than  it  was  two  thousand  years  ago,  but 
rather  the  worse  for  age  and  experience.  It  clings  only  to 
the  past.  It  knows  nothing  of  what  we  mean  by  progress 
and  improvement.  If  in  any  case  or  to  any  degree  it  has 
put  off  its  grossness  and  given  a  rational  interpretation  to 
its  traditions  and  ceremonies,  it  is  in  consequence  of  light 
which  has  come  from  Christian  nations.  If  it  does  not  now 
expose    its    indecencies   to   public   gaze   under  the   name   of 


FAITH  AND   HOPE   IN  HEATHEN  LANDS.  I  67 

worship,  or  confer  protection  and  sainthood  upon  professional 
murderers  and  beastly  profligates,  it  is  because  it  no  longer 
has  the  power  to  do  it. 

When  the  great  hope  of  the  gospel  comes  to  the  people 
of  the  East,  they  look  back  upon  their  life  passed  under 
heathenism  as  if  it  were  a  horrible  nightmare  dream,  in  which 
tliey  were  terrified  by  unreal  dangers  and  were  engaged 
in  death  struggle  with  foes  that  had  no  existence.  In  the 
bright  dawn  of  their  Christian  faith  they  feel  as  if  they  had 
come  back  into  the  real  life  of  God's  beautiful  world.  They 
find  it  full  of  voices  of  gladness  and  they  join  the  great 
song  which  the  fair  earth  is  ever  singing  to  its  Maker. 
Instead  of  demons  and  malignant  spirits  to  torture  and 
to  terrify  them,  they  have  angels  and  ministers  of  grace 
to  guide  them  in  all  their  ways,  strengthen  and  comfort 
them  in  the  hours  of  affliction,  and  keep  their  habitations 
in  peace. 

In  the  city  of  Calcutta  I  visited  the  famous  temple  of 
Kali,  where  bloody  sacrifices  are  offered  to  the  cruel  goddess 
every  day.  It  is  in  an  old  and  out-of-the-way  part  of  the 
city,  occupied  only  by  natives  wholly  given  up  to  idolatry. 
We  were  obliged  to  leave  our  carriage  and  make  our  way  on 
foot  through  narrow  lanes  and  over  muddy  stones  before 
reaching  the  sacred  shrine.  We  passed  a  small,  filthy  tank, 
the  water  of  which  looked  like  the  drainage  of  a  barnyard. 
Women  dressed  in  beautiful  silks  were  moving  down  the 
muddy  stone  steps  with  cautious  and  timid  looks  and  dipping 
their  hands  and  wetting  their  foreheads  with  the  filthy 
water.  They  did  it  to  wash  away  their  sins,  but  to  me 
the}^    came    up    from    the    tank    more    unclean    than    they 


1 68  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

went  down.  But  to  them,  the  more  vile  and  disgusting  the 
water,  the  greater  was  its  power  to  wash  away  the  guilt 
of  sin. 

The  temple  which  we  were  seeking  was  not  large  or 
lofty,  but  it  is  said  to  contain  an  image  of  peculiar  power 
in  granting  the  wishes  of  its  worshipers.  Like  the  image 
which  I  saw  in  the  field  of  Travancore,  the  Kali  of  Calcutta 
is  the  embodiment  of  murder  and  cruelty.  Around  the 
waist  is  a  girdle  of  bloody  human  hands,  around  the  neck  a 
necklace  of  human  skulls,  human  bodies  hang  by  the  hair 
from  the  ears,  a  bloody  tongue  protrudes  from  the  mouth, 
the  face  is  red  and  bloated  like  a  drunkard's.  There  was  a 
kind  of  porch  standing  out  from  the  main  temple  with  a  low 
roof  supported  by  pillars  of  stone,  and  the  porch  was  floored 
with  a  pavement  of  stone.  Under  that  roof  I  saw  a  man 
and  his  two  sons.  They  had  with  them  a  pretty  young  kid 
which  frisked  about  and  played  with  the  boys  while  the 
father  was  holding  a  long  and  anxious  consultation  with  a 
gross  and  brutal  looking  priest.  I  was  in  company  with  a 
professor  of  one  of  the  Calcutta  colleges.  He  had  lived  in 
the  country  many  years  and  he  knew  the  ways  of  the  people 
well.  I  asked  him  what  he  supposed  was  the  subject  of  the 
man's  long  consultation  with  the  priest.  He  said  that  prob- 
ably the  man  had  lost  a  small  sum  of  money  by  trade  or 
gambling,  and  he  wanted  the  priest  to  tell  him  some  charm 
which  would  enable  him  to  get  it  back  again  ;  or  his  ox  had 
died,  and  he  came  to  the  priest  to  learn  what  he  should  do  to 
appease  the  demon  that  was  supposed  to  have  killed  the  ox; 
or  some  member  of  his  family  was  sick,  and  he  wanted  to 
know  how  he  could  drive  the  evil  spirit  that  had  caused  the 


FAITH  AND  HOPE   IN  HEA  THEN  LANDS.  1 69 

sickness  out  of  his  house  and  out  of  the  body  of  the  suffer- 
ing  one.      For  such   things  the   Hindus  in  the  great   and 
elegant    city  of  Calcutta  go  to  the  terrible    goddess    Kali, 
and  the  priest  is  supposed  to  reveal  the  secrets  of  her  will. 
At  length  the  consultation  ended.     The  priest,  the  man, 
and  the  two  boys  stepped  down  upon  a  lower  platform  where 
I   was   standing,  and  they  took  the  young  kid  with   them. 
There  was  an  upright  board  set  in  the  pavement  with  a  slit 
cut  in  the  top  downward,  two  inches  wide,  giving  it   the 
appearance  of  a  two-pronged  fork.     One  of  the  boys  seized 
the  kid,  dropped  its  neck  down  the  slit  with  the  head  on  one 
side  of  the  board  and  the  body  on  the  other.     The  priest 
seized  a  cleaver,  and  while  the  kid  was  still  bleating,  its  head 
dropped  on  one  side  of  the  board  and  its  body  on  the  other. 
The  priest  threw  the  bloody  head  on  a  heap  by  the  wall ;  the 
father  and  the  sons  took  the  body  and  went  away  to  their 
own    home.     They  had    performed  what   was  to    them    the 
greatest  act  of  faith  in  their  religion.     They  had  gone  to  the 
sacred  temple  of  their  god.     They  had  consulted  the  priest, 
they  had  obeyed  his  bidding,  they  had  sacrificed  the  pet  kid, 
the    playmate    of   the    children  and   the    pet    of   the    whole 
family.     And  now  they  would  wait  and  see  whether  the  lost 
money   could  be  recovered,  the  sick  child  would   get   well, 
or  the  demon   could  be   kept  from  killing  the  rest  of  the 

cattle. 

That  is  all  that  millions  in  the  East  know  about  the 
meaning  or  the  worth  of  any  act  of  religious  faith  or  duty. 
There  was  no  approach  of  a  penitent,  trusting,  loving  heart 
to  the  one  almighty  and  all-forgiving  Father.  There  was 
no  incentive  to  a  higher,  truer,  purer   life.     There  was  no 


I  70  ArORXlXG   IJGHT  /X  A/A XV  LAXDS. 

outlook  of  hope  for  the  future  beyond  death,  no  strength 
sought  or  given  to  bear  burdens,  resist  temptation,  to  do 
good  to  others  and  live  in  peace  with  all  mankind.  The 
father  went  to  his  home  with  his  mind  filled  with  some 
lying  tale  which  the  priest  had  invented  for  the  occasion. 
His  sons  were  more  and  more  confirmed  in  the  superstition 
that  they  were  surrounded  with  evil  powers,  dark,  cruel, 
deceiving  spirits  of  evil ;  that  their  house  and  fields  and 
flocks  were  all  liable  to  be  possessed,  bewitched,  plagued 
by  unseen  workers  of  evil  to  man,  and  they  must  do  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  win  the  favor  of  these  most  dreaded 
enemies  of  man. 

Such  is  the  whole  idea  of  religion  in  the  minds  of 
millions  of  people  in  the  East.  Their  faith  in  its  power 
does  not  give  them  patience  in  trouble,  hope  in  adversity, 
purity  of  heart  and  life  under  tempation.  Their  religion  only 
increases  their  fears,  their  sorrows,  their  poverty,  and  their 
degradation.  In  all  its  modifications  in  India  and  Siam  and 
China  and  Japan,  it  is  a  religion  of  fear  —  a  strange,  compli- 
cated, irrational  attempt  to  defeat  or  deceive  imaginary 
powers  that  are  all  the  while  supposed  to  be  busy  in  bring- 
ing evil  upon  men.  Their  religion  does  not  make  them 
pure  or  just  or  truthful  or  humane.  It  is  often  said  by  the 
common  people,  the  more  religion  a  man  has,  the  less  he  is 
to  be  trusted.  Pilgrims  who  have  made  long  journeys  to 
visit  sacred  shrines  are  thought  to  be  men  for  others  to 
beware  of.  The  great  saints  of  the  East  are  for  the  most 
part  men  who  have  made  the  people  believe  that,  like  evil 
spirits,  they  have  the  power  to  curse,  to  send  blight  and 
sickness  and  famine,  and  therefore  their  favor  is  to  be  pro- 


FAITH  AND  HOPE  IN  HEATHEN  lANDS. 


171 


pitiated  by  offerings.  The  man  whom  the  people  look  upon 
as  a  saint  is  often  the  vilest,  the  most  selfish  and  licentious 
man  in  the  whole  village;  and  they  honor  him  and  make  him 
gifts  just  to  escape  his  anger  and  save  themselves  and 
their  homes  and  fields  and  beasts  from  his  curse.  Towards 
each  other  they  are  often  kind  and  sympathizing  and  helpful. 
But  it  is  not  their  religion  which  makes  them  so.  The  pec 
pie  would  be  much  better  if  the  priest  would  let  them  alone. 
At  Darjeeling,  on  the  slopes  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains, 
I  saw  large  numbers  of  tall  poles  like  flagstaffs,  fifty  feet 
high.  From  the  tops  of  the  poles  hung  streamers  reaching 
halfway  down  to  the  ground.  The  streamers  were  written 
all  over  in  Chinese  characters  with  prayers,  chants,  invoca- 
tions. When  the  wind  fluttered  the  streamers  to  and  fro,  it 
was  hoped  that  the  prayers  would  drive  the  evil  spirits 
away  from  the  homes  and  the  walks  and  tea-gardens  of  the 
people  who  set  up  the  poles  to  pray  for  them.  On  the  same 
wild  hills  I  visited  a  temple  which  was  set  around  on  three 
sides  of  the  whole  space  within  its  one  apartment  with 
upright  cylinders,  three  feet  high  and  ten  inches  in  diameter. 
The  cylinders  were  filled  with  scrolls  of  prayers  and  set  on 
pivots  so  that  they  could  easily  be  made  to  revolve.  A 
worshiper  entered  the  temple,  passed  around  the  three  rows 
of  cylinders,  and  set  them  all  whirling.  Thus  he  made  all 
the  enclosed  prayers  his,  and  he  offered  them  as  many  times 
as  the  whirling  apparatus  went  round.  Then  he  went  down 
to  his  stone  cabin  under  the  shadow  of  the  great  mountains, 
feeling  that  he  had  warded  off  evil  from  his  house  and  family 
and  field  for  the  day.  He  thought  the  whirling  prayers 
would  mystify  the  evil  spirits  and  send  them  elsewhere  in 


I  7  2  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

search  of  mischief.  His  praying  by  machine  had  not  made 
him  a  better  man  :  it  had  only  comforted  him  with  the  behef 
that  he  had  got  the  advantage  of  the  evil  powers  which  were 
ever  busy  in  some  way  to  do  him  harm. 

In  the  great  and  busy  city  of  Bombay,  —  a  city  which 
has  grand  public  buildings,  palatial  residences,  and  the  most 
elaborate  and  highly  ornamented  railway  station  that  I  ever 
saw  anywhere  in  the  world,  —  I  visited  a  hospital  for  aged, 
diseased,  and  broken-down  animals.  It  was  a  vast  enclosure 
of  pens  and  stalls  and  an  open  space  like  a  barnyard  in  the 
middle.  There  were  spavined  horses  and  lame  oxen  and 
galled  donkeys  and  broken-legged  buffaloes  and  featherless 
chickens  and  domestic  beasts  of  every  kind.  In  one  quarter 
there  were  three  hundred  dogs.  They  looked  mad  and 
mangy  enough  to  be  taken  from  the  public  streets  and  put 
under  guard  more  from  regard  for  the  saftty  of  the  people 
than  from  pity  for  the  dogs.  When  I  came  near  them  they 
growled  and  barked  and  yelped  with  such  fury  that  I  was 
glad  to  have  a  strong  fence  between  me  and  their  snapping 
teeth.  There  I  saw  a  woman  bring  a  handful  of  green  grass 
which  she  had  been  a  long  way  to  gather  by  the  roadside  or 
in  the  open  field.  She  knelt  down  and  gave  it  to  a  lame  ox 
reverently  and  humbly  as  if  she  were  performing  an  act 
of  worship.  She  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  there 
might  be  the  spirit  of  a  man  imprisoned  in  the  body  of  that 
ox.  By  giving  the  animal  grass  she  hoped  to  propitiate  the 
human  spirit  and  gain  merit  for  herself  to  ward  off  evil  from 
her  household.  I  could  get  no  one  to  admit  that  the  broken- 
down  and  suffering  animals  were  kept  and  cared  for  from 
pity  or  kindness  to  them.     It  was  all  done  in  the  hope  of 


FAITH  AND   HOPE   IJV  HEATHEN  LANDS.  I  73 

storing  up  merit  that  might  inure  to  the  advantage  of  the 
one  who  brought  the  grain,  the  grass,  or  the  water  to  the 
beasts.  Outside  of  the  hospital  thousands  of  animals  were 
abused  and  tortured  every  day  and  no  kindness  was  shown 
to  them.  When  they  were  broken  down  with  labor  and 
abuse  and  were  no  longer  able  to  work  for  the  owners,  they 
would  be  brought  into  the  hospital,  and  the  misery  of  their 
life  prolonged  in  order  to  lay  up  merit  for  the  men  who  had 
tortured  them  with  blows  and  heavy  burdens  and  hunger  in 
the  fields  and  on  the  high-ways. 

When  I  was  at  Sholapur  a  child  had  just  been  bitten  and 
killed  by  a  cobra.  The  story  was  told  to  the  wife  of  a 
wealthy  Parsee.  She  expressed  great -sorrow  for  the  child 
and  great  sympathy  for  the  parents  in  their  affliction  ;  but 
when  told  that  the  snake  was  caught  and  killed,  she  forgot 
all  her  sorrow  and  sympathy  for  the  human  sufferers  and 
expressed  great  horror  at  the  awful  sacrilege  of  killing  the 
cobra.  She  thought  that  in  the  body  of  the  venomous 
beast  the  spirit  of  a  man,  passing  through  millions  of  trans- 
migrations, might  be  resting  for  the  time,  and  that  the  kill- 
ing of  the  deadly  reptile  might  bring  the  vengeance  of 
the  human  spirit  upon  the  homes  of  the  living.  In  that 
case,  too,  it  was  not  pity  for  the  snake  which  moved  the 
heart  of  the  woman,  but  fear  of  incurring  the  displeasure  of 
spirits  that  are  ever  ready  and  waiting  to  do  mischief  to 
man. 

In  the  city  of  Tokyo  I  entered  a  great  temple  which 
was  thronged  with  worshipers.  There  were  gamblers  and 
thieves  and  fortune  tellers  and  hucksters  of  every  name 
plying  their  trade  while  the  worship  of  the  priests  and  the 


I  74  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

people  went  on.  Some  came  with  a  prayer  written  upon 
paper  which  they  chewed  in  the  mouth  until  they  made  a 
pasty  ball  of  the  prayer,  and  then  they  threw  it  at  the  imajj^e 
of  the  <;od.  If  it  stuck  fast  where  it  hit,  the  thrower  went 
away  with  the  belief  that  his  petition  was  heard  and  his 
desired  good  fortune  would  come.  Some  went  nearer  and 
pasted  a  leaf  of  gold  foil  upon  the  body  of  the  idol,  and 
then  turned  away  with  the  hope  that  more  gold  would  come 
to  them  than  they  had  given  to  the  god.  I  saw  a  woman 
throw  a  few  small  coins  for  her  contribution  through  the  rack 
into  the  treasury  of  the  temple  and  then  bow  down  to  the 
floor  three  times  before  the  great  golden  image  of  the  ever- 
sleeping  Buddha.  Then  she  went  to  an  old,  blackened,  and 
featureless  image,  rubbed  her  hands  three  times  reverently 
over  the  face,  put  her  hand  into  her  bosom  each  time,  and 
then  she  went  out  with  a  half-saddehcd  and  half-satisfied 
look.  Her  offering  had  been  made  and  her  act  of  worship 
was  done.  I  asked  an  old-time  resident  in  Japan  what  it  all 
meant.  He  said  the  woman  was  suffering  from  some  kind  of 
illness,  and  she  had  been  told  that  if  she  stroked  the  face  of 
that  ugly  image  three  times  and  cast  her  gift  into  the  treas- 
ury of  the  temple,  the  spirit  of  the  god  would  come  out  of 
the  dead  stone  and  heal  her  pain.  The  face  had  been 
stroked  so  many  times  by  worshipers  that  the  nose  and 
lips  were  nearly  gone.  The  priests  of  the  temple  got  the 
gifts,  and  it  cost  them  nothing  to  praise  the  healing  power  of 
the  dead  stone.  If  the  worshipers  got  better,  they  thought 
the  god  had  healed  their  disease  ;  if  they  grew  worse,  they 
thought  it  had  been  fated  that  they  should  die  :  and  neither 
ecods  nor  men  could  undo  what  the  fates  had  decreed. 


FAITH  AND  HOPE  IN  HEATHEN  LANDS.  I  75 

I  visited  the  most  popular  and  frequented  of  all  the  tem- 
ples of  Ningpo  in  China.  There  was  a  throng  of  people 
coming'  and  going,  and  they  looked  apparently  with  equal 
reverence  upon  the  imagery  of  hell  and  the  pictures  of  para- 
dise that  illustrated  the  walls.  The  usual  trading  and  gam- 
bling and  soothsaying  were  going  on,  and  a  stranger  could 
not  distinguish  between  the  prayers  of  the  devout  and  the 
lying  prophecies  of  the  fortune  teller  and  the  mystic  mum- 
bling of  the  astrologer.  The  priest,  who  seemed  to  be  the 
master  of  the  temple  and  the  overseer  of  everything  done 
within  the  sacred  walls,  looked  about  him  with  an  air  of  the 
utmost  gravity  and  sincerity.  To  all  appearance  he  was  as 
well  pleased  with  the  game  of  the  gamblers  and  the  tricks 
of  the  fortune  tellers  as  he  was  with  the  prayers  of  the 
devout  and  the  gifts  of  the  faithful.  All  paid  him,  and  why 
should  he  not  be  equally  pleased  with  all  t 

I  saw  women  handsomely  dressed  in  native  costume, 
wearing  silks  that  were  the  brightest  and  finest  that  the 
weaver  and  dyer  could  make.  Their  shining  black  hair  was 
elaborately  dressed  in  winglike  folds  and  it  was  kept  in 
place  by  gold  bodkins  and  silver  spangles.  They  looked 
serious,  thoughtful,  and  sensible,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
they  must  know  the  emptiness  of  idol-worship.  But  they 
went  around  reverently,  bending  in  worship  before  many 
images,  setting  incense  sticks  burning  before  many  idols, 
and  then  they  went  out  of  the  grim  and  ghastly  looking  joss 
house  with  as  much  decency  and  dignity  of  deportment  as 
we  would  e.xpect  in  persons  leaving  a  Christian  church  on 
the  Sabbath  day.  In  that  same  temple  at  the  same  hour  of 
the  day  I    saw  a   man  shaking   a  long   round  bo.x   in   which 


I  76  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

were  many  divination  rods  marked  with  lucky  and  unlucky 
numbers.  He  was  to  shake  till  one  fell  out  before  the  god. 
If  it  proved  to  be  a  fortunate  number,  the  man  went  to  his 
home  with  as  much  complacency  as  the  women  went  to 
theirs,  after  the  offering  of  incense  and  prostration  before 
the  idol,  and  both  believed  equally  that  they  had  sought  aid 
in  their  human  affairs  from  the  powers  above.  After  the 
act  of  morning  worship,  if  worship  it  could  be  called,  they 
all  were  happy  in  the  belief  that  the  demons  of  mischief  and 
misfortune  would  not  trouble  them  that  day. 

Every  shop  in  the  streets  of  Canton  has  a  little  niche  or 
altar  place  cut  into  the  pedestal  of  one  of  the  side-posts  of 
the  door.  The  trader  keeps'  joss  sticks  burning  in  that 
recess  all  day  to  drive  away  the  demons  that  disturb  trade 
and  deceive  men  into  making  bad  bargains.  When  he  opens 
his  shop  in  the  morning,  he  takes  up  his  counting-frame 
with  which  he  does  all  his  reckoning,  and  he  shakes  the 
sliding  buttons  violently  backward  and  forward  many  times 
to  drive  the  mischief-making  spirits  out.  He  is  afraid  that 
they  may  have  got  into  the  frame  over  night  with  the  design 
to  stay  there  all  day  and  lead  him  to  make  false  reckonings 
in  his  business.  When  the  spirits  are  gone,  he  keeps  incense 
sticks  burning  at  the  door  to  prevent  the  invisible  mischief- 
makers  from  coming  back  and  disturbing  his  trade.  He 
takes  it  for  granted  that  the  spirits  always  have  some  evil 
intent  and  that  they  never  visit  shops  or  homes  except  to 
do  somebody  harm. 

So  all  over  the  East  the  minds  of  men  are  possessed  with 
the  belief  that  the  powers  of  the  invisible  world,  whatever 
they  are,  hover  about  the  paths  and  homes  of  rich  and  poor, 


FAITH  AXD  HOPE  IN  HE  A  THEN  LANDS.  I  7  7 

prince  and  peasant,  always  with  the  intent  to  inflict  evil. 
Great  cost  is  incurred  and  great  efforts  are  piu'  forth  and 
endless  devices  are  resorted  to  in  the  endeavor  to  escape 
their  malignity.  By  millions  of  people,  every  day,  incense 
is  burned,  sacrifices  are  made,  gifts  are  given,  lots  are  drawn, 
temples  are  visited,  idols  are  gilded  and  crowned  with  gar- 
lands, priests  and  fortune  tellers  are  consulted,  prayers  are 
whirled  in  cylinders  or  floated  on  flagstaffs  or  burned  in 
paper  or  mumbled  in  unknown  tongues,  to  guard  against  the 
powers  of  evil  which  are  supposed  to  beset  and  plague  men's 
life  everywhere  and  at  all  times.  It  is  hard  to  say  what  can 
be  the  origin  of  this  universal  fear,  but  it  looks  as  if  the 
imaginations  and  consciences  of  men  were  evil,  and  they 
transferred  the  secret  dread  and  the  dark  surmisings  of  their 
own  hearts  to  the  surrounding  world  and  so  filled  the  earth 
and  the  heavens  with  avengers  of  their  own  evil  deeds  or 
emissaries  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 

At  Peking,  the  seat  of  the  government  which  rules  over 
more  millions  of  people  than  any  other  government  that 
exists  or  ever  has  existed  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  I  saw  a 
large  paper  ship  with  masts  and  sails  and  spars  and  rigging 
and  a  hull  big  enough  to  hold  figures  of  sailors  and  passen- 
gers of  life-size.  It  was  brilliant  in  color  and  artistic  in  finish 
and  it  must  have  cost  much  time  and  money  to  make  it.  And 
it  was  set  on  fire  and  burned  to  ashes  in  the  broad  street  in 
the  presence  of  thousands  of  admiring  and  applauding  spec- 
tators. They  looked  upon  it  as  a  great  and  acceptable 
offering  to  win  the  favor  of  spirits  that  held  the  life  and 
health  of  the  living  in  their  power.  The  same  day  and 
evening   I   saw   hundreds   of    paper    figures    of    houses    and 


T78  MOK.V/XG   LIGHT  IX  MAXY  LAXDS. 

horses  and  servants  and  sedan  chairs  and  carts  and  house- 
hold furniture,  bread  and  grain  and  garments  and  money, 
all  burned  in  the  open  street.  It  was  done  in  hope  that 
the  reality  of  the  things  represented  by  the  paper  figures 
would  go  into  the  service  and  propitiate  the  favor  of  spirits 
that  were  supposed  to  be  hovering  in  the  air,  haunting  the 
houses,  infesting  the  streets,  and  ever  ready  to  derange 
business,  destroy  property,  waylay  and  mislead  travelers, 
mildew  the  grain,  poison  the  fountains,  bring  drought  and 
plague  and  famine  upon  the  land. 

The  wise  men  of  China,  the  sages  and  the  philosophers, 
who  have  been  trained  in  the  principles  of  Confucius  all  their 
life  long,  join  in  such  offerings  with  the  common  people, 
and  they  teach  and  encourage  the  people  to  make  them.  I 
supposed  that  they  might,  as  a  matter  of  policy  and  for  the 
sake  of  keeping  peace  among  the  people,  yield  to  the  cus- 
toms which  had  come  down  to  them  from  their  fathers.  It 
did  not  seem  to  me  possible  that  they  could  actually  believe 
in  the  fitness  and  efficacy  of  such  offerings  in  securing  the 
welfare  of  the  country.  But  I  sought  information  on  that 
point  from  a  man  who  knows  the  foremost  men  of  the 
empire  better  perhaps  than  any  other  foreigner  and  who  has 
lived  in  the  country  and  made  a  diligent  study  of  Chinese 
opinions  and  customs  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  He  told 
me  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  most  enlightened  and  progressive 
statesmen  in  China  at  the  present  time  believed  in  the 
sacredness  and  the  importance  of  that  custom,  and  they 
encouraged  the  people  so  to  believe  by  precept  and  by  their 
own  voluntary  example.  In  the  arts  of  diplomacy,  in  the 
management    of   difficult  questions   and  the   negotiation  of 


FAITH  AND  HOPE  IN  HEATHEN  LANDS. 


179 


treaties  between  themselves  and  other  nations,  the  Chinese 
are  said  to  be  more  than  the  equals  of  European  statesmen. 
They  are  unrivaled  in  all  matters  which  depend  for  success 
upon  concealment  of  motives  and  methods  of  operation  ; 
they  are  quick  and  keen  in  their  judgment  of  character ;  they 
are  patient  in  adherence  to  the  one  aim  they  have  in  view ; 
they  will  persist  in  their  purpose  in  face  of  all  hindrances, 
oppositions,  and  delays.  At  the  same  time  they  adhere 
to  the  old  absurd  rites,  usages,  and  superstitions  just  as  the 
lowest  of  the  people  do.  My  most  intelligent  friend  gave  it 
as  his  opinion  that  they  do  it  as  a  matter  of  faith  and  not 
merely  of  policy  or  expediency.  They  have  talent,  education, 
experience,  knowledge  of  the  world,  but  they  are  heathen 
still,  just  like  the  common  people  about  them. 

These  renowned  Chinese  statesmen  and  diplomatists  have 
had  intercourse  with  Europeans  for  years  ;  some  of  them  have 
visited  Europe.  They  can  read  the  English  language  and 
they  have  access  to  the  science  and  history  and  the  literature 
of  western  nations.  Even  if  they  read  no  language  but 
their  own,  translations  of  books  on  the  most  important  and 
practical  branches  of  science  are  within  their  reach.  And 
yet  they  are  in  bondage  to  the  prince  of  the  power  of  the 
air,  like  the  coolie  that  toils  in  the  rice  field  or  runs  in  the 
riksha.  They  build  up  a  blank  wall  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street  as  high  as  their  front  door  to  keep  the  spirits,  that 
move  in  straight  lines  through  the  air,  from  finding  their 
way  in.  When  they  start  on  long  voyages  by  river  or  sea 
they  set  fire  to  paper  pictures  of  money  and  rice  and  houses 
and  garments  and  all  manner  of  good  things,  and  cast  them 
into  the  water  as  offerings  to  appease   the   spirits    of   the 


I  80  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

deep,  lest  they  should  be  anj^ry  and  rouse  up  the  winds  and 
waves,  and  send  forth  lightnings  and  thunderbolts,  and  hurl 
the  ship  to  the  bottom  with  the  swift  and  terrible  typhoon. 
They  imagine  that  some  mysterious  and  mighty  dragon  lies 
coiled  in  many  a  scaly  fold  beneath  the  thronged  streets  of 
great  cities,  and  that  if  houses  were  set  in  line  along  the 
streets  the  monster  would  become  angry,  and  with  one  whisk 
of  his  tail  toss  houses  and  temples  and  people  millions  of 
miles  into  the  air.  I  overheard  an  excited  conversation 
between  a  foreigner  and  an  intelligent  Chinaman  in  the 
streets  of  Fuchau.  When  I  asked  what  was  the  subject  of 
the  controversy,  I  was  told  that  the  Chinaman  feared  some 
mistake  had  been  made  in  building  lines  by  the  foreigner, 
and  that  in  consequence  the  great  dragon  would  turn  angrily 
in  his  deep  bed  under  the  hill,  and  natives  and  foreigners 
alike  would  be  buried  in  one  common  ruin.  The  Chinamen 
speak  of  such  absurdities  with  as  much  earnestness  and  sin- 
cerity as  we  would  expect  to  see  in  the  look  and  manner  of  a 
man  who  was  guarding  and  protesting  against  the  most  awful 
calamity.  If  something  should  go  wrong  in  the  family,  if 
there  should  be  sickness  or  accident  or  trouble  of  any  kind, 
they  would  hire  priests  and  astrologers  to  come  to  the  house 
and  stay  there  for  days  and  weeks,  feasting,  incurring  the 
expenditure  of  hundreds,  even  thousands,  of  dollars  in  vain 
ceremonies,  reading,  chanting  unmeaning  formulas  of  words, 
burning  pictured  paper,  cutting  right  and  left  with  swords, 
under  the  pretense  of  driving  the  spirits  that  plague  the 
family  out  of  the  house. 

Such  is  the  faith  and  such  the    practice  of  the  foremost 
men  of  China,  the  great  scholars  and  teachers,  the  viceroys 


FAITH  AND  HOPE  IN  HEATHEN  LANDS.  l8l 

and  governors  of  millions,  the  statesmen  and  philosophers 
trained  in  all  the  wisdom  of  Confucius  and  Mencius,  men 
who  have  passed  through  all  the  examinations  of  the  boards 
of  education  with  success  and  honor.  And  if  such  be  the 
leaders,  the  best  educated  and  the  most  progressive  of  the 
men  of  China,  what  must  the  people  be  ?  How  dark  and 
dreadful  the  cloud  of  ignorance  and  superstition  which  casts 
its  shadow  upon  their  daily  life  !  How  the  world  must  seem 
to  them  like  a  prison  house,  haunted  with  demons  and  hung 
around  with  pictures  of  fear  and  horror  ! 


XIV. 

HAVING    EYES    AND    SEEING    NOT. 

THE  traveler  in  a  foreign  country  has  his  attention 
drawn  first  to  things  that  look  least  like  what  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  see  at  home.  So  in  the  East  the  Amer- 
ican cannot  keep  his  eyes  off  from  the  wretched  homes,  and 
in  all  his  letters  and  conversation  he  keeps  talking  about  the 
poverty  and  degradation  of  the  common  people.  He  has 
never  seen  such  raggedness  and  nakedness  ;  he  has  never 
looked  into  so  many  hopeless  and  spiritless  faces  ;  he  has 
never  before  met  with  millions  from  whose  minds  the  light 
is  so  completely  shut  out.  So  he  is  apt  to  talk  about  the 
sad  condition  of  the  people  as  if  there  were  little  else  to  see. 
In  my  own  case  I  did  not  stay  long  enough  to  get  used  to  it 
or  to  have  my  mind  so  taken  up  with  work  for  the  relief  of 
the  poor  and  ignorant  that  I  ceased  from  silent  wonder  or 
useless  lamentation.  But  in  five  months'  time  and  five  thou- 
sand miles  of  travel  in  India  alone  I  saw  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness and  superstition  enough  to  make  me  think  and  talk 
about  it  in  spite  of  myself. 

I  do  not  suppose,  however,  that  the  masses  of  the  people 
in  the  East  feel  the  misery  and  the  degradation  of  their  lot 
as  it  seemed  to  me  or  as  I  represent  it  in  these  pages.  They 
do  not  feel  it  as  we  would  if  we  were  taken  out  of  our  pres- 
ent homes  and  surroundings  and  put  in  their  place.  If  in 
their  condition  we  could  remember  our  former  state  and  yet 

182 


HAVING   EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  1 83 

have  no  power  to  recover  it,  we  should  feel  that  the  doom 
of  immitigable  and  endless  despair  were  upon  us.  Yet  the 
people  of  the  East  are  the  more  to  be  pitied  by  us,  and  their 
call  to  us  for  help  and  instruction  is  the  louder,  just  because 
they  do  not  know  how  needy  they  are.  They  do  not  long 
for  light  to  shine  upon  their  dark  path,  just  because  they 
have  walked  in  the  night  of  ignorance  so  long  that  they  do 
not  know  what  the  day  is.  They  choose  darkness  rather 
than  light,  just  as  the  Greenlander  prefers  a  cabin  of  ice  to 
a  comfortable  home.  Sometimes,  even,  they  think  they  are 
the  wisest,  the  most  enlightened,  and  the  happiest  people  on 
the  earth.  The  habitual  cloud  which  rests  upon  their  minds 
makes  them  think  that  all  remote  portions  of  the  earth  are 
inhabited  by  demons  and  deformed  men  who  are  constantly 
scourged  by  hail  and  tempest  or  wasted  by  drought  and 
famine.  They  are  like  the  sick  man  to  whom  the  first 
symptoms  of  approaching  death  come  with  release  from  pain 
and  he  thinks  it  the  sign  of  returning  life  and  health.  Life, 
light,  instruction,  increase  the  capacity  for  enjoyment,  but 
they  also  correspondingly  increase  the  capacity  for  pain. 
So,  sometimes,  when  the  light  begins  to  shine  in  upon 
the  dark  homes  of  the  heathen  and  to  show  them  their 
wretchedness,  they  wish  it  had  not  come. 

The  call  to  us  to  do  what  we  can  in  kindling  the  light 
of  hope  and  salvation  all  over  the  East  is  the  more  urgent 
just  because  the  people  of  those  lands  try  to  shut  out  the 
light  and  are  content  to  walk  in  darkness.  The  common 
people  of  India  are  solemn,  serious,  dejected  in  their  look 
and  manners.  To  me  they  seem  sad,  as  if  carrying  the 
burden  of  some   great   sorrow   upon   their   hearts.      I    never 


184  MOKNIXG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LAXDS. 

saw  them,  young  or  old,  engaged  in  any  kind  of  spirited 
and  mirthful  play,  I  could  not  learn  that  they  ever  indulged 
in  jokes  or  witticisms  in  conversation  with  each  other. 
The  juggler  and  the  snake-charmer,  the  story-teller  and 
the  gymnast,  the  teacher  and  the  school-boy,  were  as 
solemn  as  the  fakir  and  the  guru.  I  do  not  remember 
ever  to  have  heard  a  native  Indian  laugh  loud  ;  seldom  did 
I  see  one  even  faintly  smile.  They  have  no  sense  of 
humor.  They  see  no  meaning  in  wit  that  would  make 
an  American  audience  wild  with  laughter.  They  look  as 
if  they  thought  life  too  great  and  awful  a  reality  to  permit 
them  to  laugh  at  anything.  The  whole  teaching  of  Buddh- 
ism especially,  and,  to  a  less  degree  of  all  the  other 
religions  of  the  East,  is  that  life  is  a  great  calamity, 
existence  is  a  burden  to  be  laid  down  with  a  deep  sense  of 
relief  when  the  time  of  the  end  comes.  How  can  they  be 
cheerful  when  their  religion  has  taught  them  that  they 
have  nothing  to  be  thankful  for }  How  can  they  be  merry 
when  the  opening  of  the  mouth  in  laughter  may  give  an 
evil  demon  an  opportunity  to  rush  in  and  torture  them  to 
madness }  How  can  they  see  brightness  and  beauty  in  the 
world  about  them,  when  every  grove  and  hill  and  fountain 
is  believed  to  be  the  home  of  spirits  whose  delight  is  to 
destroy  their  harvests  and  bring  sickness  and  sorrow  upon 
their  homes  .■' 

Yet  I  was  not  quite  sure  that  the  common  people 
always  had  such  sad  thoughts  in  their  hearts.  I  do  not 
think  that  even  the  best  of  them  were  quite  living  up  to 
the  dismal  demands  of  their  religion  of  demons  or  their 
philosophy  of  despair.     I  never  felt  quite  sure  that  I  under- 


HAVING   EYES  AND   SEEING   NOT.  185 

Stood  the  inner  life  and  spirit  of  the  people.  Foreigners 
who  had  lived  in  the  East  thirty  years,  and  who  spoke  the 
languages  about  them  well,  were  still  perplexed  and  mysti- 
fied in  their  attempts  to  get  into  the  secret  depths  of 
the  oriental  mind.  The  most  intelligent  traveler  has 
little  chance  of  becoming  thoroughly  acquainted  with  men 
and  things  in  the  East,  unless  he  stays  long  and  studies 
hard,  and  then  he  will  sometimes  feel  his  ignorance  more 
deeply  in  the  end  than  when  he  began.  Oriental  modes  of 
thinking  and  living  are  so  different  from  our  own  that  we 
find  it  quite  impossible  to  put  ourselves  in  their  place  and 
look  out  upon  the  world  with  their  eyes.  To  them,  the  broad 
landscape  and  the  distant  mountains  and  the  wide  river 
and  the  boundless  deep  are  inhabited  and  controlled  by 
beings  which  to  us  have  no  existence.  Their  minds  are 
haunted  by  fears  and  inspired  by  hopes  which  would  only 
provoke  our  ridicule,  if  we  did  not  pity  their  ignorance  and 
wonder  at  their  superstition.  The  meaning  which  they 
give  to  language,  the  motives  which  inspire  them  to  action, 
the  sources  from  which  they  draw  their  pleasures,  and  the 
basis  on  which  they  build  their  expectations  are  so  far  out 
of  the  range  of  our  common  thinking  and  feeling  that  it 
requires  the  study  of  a  lifetime  to  understand  the  East. 
Men  of  equal  talent  and  opportunity  engage  in  that  study 
for  years  and  come  to  very  different  conclusions,  just 
because  the  subject  itself  is  so  dreamy,  mystical,  and  uncer- 
tain. The  books  of  the  East  often  mislead  the  student 
quite  as  much  as  the  manners  of  the  people  mislead  the 
observer.  If  we  put  western  interpretations  upon  what 
we  find  written  in  their  books,  we  shall  be  as  far  out  of  the 


I  86  MORX/NG  LIGHT  I.V  MANY  LANDS. 

way  as  we  should  if  we  put  trowsers  upon  men  who  wear 
turbans  in  India  or  tall  hats  upon  men  who  wear  tails  in 
China.  If  we  believe  everything  that  is  told  us  at  first, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  misled  so  often  that  we  shall  be  in 
danger  of  believing  nothing  in  the  end. 

The  people  of  China  are  just  as  great  a  mystery  as  the 
Hindus,  just  as  fast  bound  in  ignorance  and  superstition, 
just  as  much  enslaved  to  custom  and  tradition.  And  yet 
they  have  a  strange  and  unconquerable  vitality.  They  are 
not  as  much  bowed  down  and  crushed  by  their  work,  how- 
ever hard  it  may  be ;  they  do  not  look  as  much  as  if  they 
were  ever  lamenting  their  hard  lot  and  wondering  at  the 
great  mystery  of  life.  They  have  a  singular  mingling  of 
cunning,  of  deep  and  dark  deceptiveness,  together  with  an 
air  of  childlike  simplicity.  They  have  great  ingenuity  but 
no  invention.  When,  by  any  accident,  they  light  upon  a 
new  art,  a  great  invention,  they  are  not  apt  to  know  it. 
They  find  their  way  to  the  door  of  the  great  world-wide 
temple  of  art  and  improvement,  but  they  never  step  inside. 
They  have  great  individuality  and  self-esteem,  but  no 
capacity  to  adapt  themselves  to  men  and  circumstances 
out  of  their  usual  line  of  thought.  They  talk  a  great  deal 
about  wisdom  and  truth  and  honor.  Yet  they  are  foolish 
and  treacherous  and  unclean  in  their  lives.  Their  classics 
are  loaded  with  precepts  about  prudence  and  integrity 
and  the  qualities  which  belong  to  the  superior  man.  Yet 
they  have  little  sensibility  to  the  value  of  truth  ;  they  do 
not  dare  to  trust  each  other,  and  in  four  thousand  years 
they  have  not  produced  a  man  whose  sayings  can  be 
quoted  for  wisdom  and  whose   doings   can  be    commended 


HAVING  EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  1 87 

for  righteousness  among  all  nations.  So  far  as  they  have 
any  religion  at  all,  it  sits  very  lightly  upon  their  con- 
sciences and  their  hearts.  An  old  resident  in  China  told 
me  that  he  had  been  studying  the  Chinese  mind  for  thirty- 
four  years,  and  yet  to  him  it  was  still  an  impenetrable 
mystery.  After  five  months  among  the  solemn-faced  and 
sad-looking  Hindus,  and  two  months  more  among  the 
indolent  and  sleepy  Buddhists  of  Burma  and  Siam,  it  was 
a  pleasant  relief  to  me  to  get  among  the  active,  hard-work- 
ing, irrepressible  Chinese.  But  then  I  thought,  what  have 
these  poor  coolies  of  the  great  Central  Flowery  Kingdom 
to  gain  by  their  hard  work  }  What  have  they  to  rejoice 
over  as  the  fruit  of  their  labor.?  They  are  just  as  ignorant 
and  debased  and  superstitious  as  the  solemn-faced  Hindus. 
They  are  just  as  much  in  need  of  the  message  which 
brings  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  people.  They  are 
even  more  unconscious  of  the  darkness  and  degradation  in 
which  they  live. 

The  people  of  the  East  are  all  exceedingly  religious,  and 
they  are  not  ashamed  to  show  their  religion  wherever  they 
go.  In  the  street  and  in  the  house,  in  the  field  and  on  the 
highway,  in  the  workshop,  the  ox-bandy,  and  the  railway  car, 
they  all  show  in  some  way  what  they  believe  and  what  man- 
ner of  life  they  lead.  In  India  they  paint  the  horns  of  their 
oxen  red  and  blue ;  they  hang  bits  of  bright-colored  cloth  on 
the  trees  by  the  roadside  ;  they  set  up  figures  of  men  and 
horses,  serpents  and  sea-monsters,  to  overlook  the  fields  and 
drive  away  drought  and  blight  and  famine ;  they  make  offer- 
ing's of  fruit  and  flowers  and  oil  before  the  idols,  beside 
every  fountain  and  under  every  green  tree  ;  they  shave  the 


I  88  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

head  and  they  let  the  hair  grow  long  ;  they  wear  peculiar 
garments  and  they  go  naked  ;  they  bathe  in  sacred  water  and 
they  cover  their  bodies  with  the  most  abominable  filth  ;  they 
give  up  their  streets  to  bulls  and  cows  and  monkeys ;  they  let 
their  houses  be  infested  with  bats  and  birds  and  lizards  and 
centipedes ;  they  give  up  a  part  of  their  scant  breakfast  to  be 
taken  from  their  hands  by  intruding  crows  and  parrots  and 
sparrows ;  they  look  with  sacred  awe  upon  the  life  of  the 
toad,  the  tortoise,  and  the  deadly  serpent.  All  these  things, 
which  are  to  be  seen  everywhere,  are  services  of  religion 
among  the  people  of  India.  The  sacred  ashes  and  the  ver- 
milion lines  on  forehead  and  arms  and  body  ;  the  sacred  cord 
and  the  bead  roll  ;  the  hair  matted  with  mud  and  the  body 
besmeared  with  worse  coating  from  the  sewer  and  the  dung- 
hill,—  all  tell  the  faith  in  which  they  live  and  the  gods  whom 
they  trust  to  deliver  them  when  they  cry.  A  man  would  no 
more  think  he  could  go  into  the  street,  the  shop,  or  the  field, 
without  some  act  or  sign  to  show  his  religion,  than  the  trades- 
man would  think  he  could  sell  goods  without  a  sign,  or  the 
.sailor  would  venture  out  to  sea  without  a  compass  or  a  chart. 
To  the  man  of  the  East  religion  is  his  daily  bread  to 
strengthen  him  for  his  work  and  his  nightly  sleep  when  his 
work  is  done.  It  goes  with  him  for  a  constant  companion 
on  his  journeys,  and  it  is  the  first  to  salute  him  at  his  own 
door  when  he  comes  home.  The  white  and  the  variously 
colored  turbans  and  the  manner  of  arranging  the  folds  on 
the  head  ;  the  loose  garment  for  the  body  and  the  tight  girdle 
for  the  loins  ;  the  call  of  the  coolie  for  work  and  the  cry  of 
the  beggar  for  alms  ;  the  dull  singsong  with  which  porters 
and  messengers  trot  along  the  road,  and  the  monotonous 


HAVING    EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  1 89 

refrain  with  which  palanquin  carriers  cheer  each  other  in  the 
night,  —  all  have  some  religious  meaning  and  are  full  confes- 
sions of  faith  in  the  legends  of  Hindu  life  and  the  tales  of 
Hindu  gods.  When  he  rises  in  the  morning  and  when  he 
lies  down  at  night,  when  he  eats  and  when  he  goes  hungry, 
when  he  dresses  himself  with  care  and  when  he  goes  naked, 
at  his  birth  and  marriage  and  death,  the  Hindu  proclaims 
his  faith  in  Siva  and  Krishna  and  Vishnu  ;  he  declares  his 
adherence  to  the  traditions  and  customs  of  his  country  for  a 
hundred  generations. 

So  it  is  impossible  to  talk  about  the  people  of  India  with 
intelligence  and  truth  without  having  much  to  say  about 
their  religion.  The  peasant  life  in  the  field  and  the  shop 
life  in  the  city,  the  home  life  in  the  house  and  the  boy  life  in 
the  school,  the  priest  life  in  the  temple  and  the  sailor  life  on 
the  sea,  are  all  accompanied  with  religious  rites  and  are 
mingled  with  confessions  of  religious  faith.  If  their  reli- 
gion were  only  good  and  true,  if  it  enlightened  the  mind 
and  purified  the  heart  and  ennobled  character,  we  should  say 
they  were  wise  in  making  so  much  of  it.  The  religion  which 
lifts  a  man  up  to  God,  makes  common  things  sacred  and 
sacred  things  real,  which  gives  strength  to  bear  every  bur- 
den, courage  to  meet  every  danger,  and  faith  to  gain  the 
final  victory  over  death,  is  not  a  thing  to  be  hidden  in  the 
heart  when  the  world  needs  to  know  its  truth  and  feel  its 
power. 

A  very  slight  glance  at  the  landscape  as  one  moves  lei- 
surely along  in  the  Indian  train  is  sufficient  to  convince  the 
traveler  that  pity  for  the  poor  is  not  one  of  the  virtues  incul- 
cated by  the  saints  and  sages  of  Hinduism.     The  beggar  is 


190  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

indeed  sometimes  helped  in  answer  to  his  miserable  cry,  but 
he  is  sure  to  get  his  pitiful  dole  of  charity  only  when  he 
assumes  to  be  a  saint  or  prophet  and  to  have  the  power  to 
curse  those  who  refuse  to  answer  his  call  for  gifts.  Let  him 
do  that,  and  the  poorest  will  give  out  of  their  poverty  to 
escape  the  evil  which  the  holy  man  has  the  power  and  the 
will  to  inflict.  Let  such  a  pretended  saint,  the  vilest  and 
the  filthiest  of  the  tribe,  go  to  a  Hindu  village  and  require 
the  people  to  bring  him  a  contribution  of  money  or  cloth  or 
provisions,  and  let  him  threaten  them  with  his  curse  if  they 
fail  to  comply  with  his  demand,  and  they  will  bring  him 
the  best  of  everything  they  have.  Even  then  the  lying 
beggar,  who  assumes  the  character  of  the  filthy  fakir,  will 
confirm  his  claim  to  sainthood  by  rejecting  a  part  of  the 
gifts,  as  if  he  would  be  defiled  by  the  touch.  If  a  cup  of 
cold  water  is  given  to  quench  his  thirst,  he  makes  a  cup  of 
the  hollow  of  his  hands  and  commands  the  draught  to  be 
poured  into  it  that  he  may  drink  without  touching  his  lips  to 
the  vessel  which  others  have  brought.  If  in  his  haste  and 
extreme  thirst  he  should  swallow  the  smallest  fly  or  worm  or 
waterbug  or  living  creature  of  any  kind,  he  would  make  a 
great  outcry  of  grief  and  horror  for  having  committed  a 
mortal  sin,  and  he  would  claim  that  he  had  laid  himself 
liable  to  ages  of  punishment  in  the  next  world  for  the 
great  wickedness  he  had  done  in  taking  animal  life. 

Villages  in  great  numbers  may  be  seen  right  and  left  of 
the  road  as  we  pass  over  the  vast  plains  of  Southern  and 
Northern  India.  They  are  mostly  a  rude  huddle  of  thatched 
and  mud-built  huts.  It  seems  extravagant  to  call  them 
houses  or  habitations  for  human  families  to  dwell  in.     The 


HAVING  EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  191 

thatch  looks  old  and  weather-worn,  the  huts  have  no  win- 
dows, the  mud  walls  are  crumbling  to  the  earth,  and  it  seems 
a  wonder  that  they  are  not  all  washed  down  to  the  level  of 
the  mud  out  of  which  they  have  been  built  when  the  rainy 
season  comes  and  the  clouds  pour  down  water  enough  in  a 
few  weeks  to  last  the  whole  year.  The  rude  coverings  for 
the  people  are  no  more  pleasant  and  comfortable  inside  than 
the  exterior  would  lead  one  to  expect.  Millions  live  in  a  low, 
narrow  kennel,  with  no  ornament,  no  furniture,  no  ventila- 
tion, no  floor  but  the  ground,  no  window  to  look  out  from  or 
to  let  the  light  shine  in;  nothing  to  see  inside  but  the  bare 
mud  walls  and  the  faces  of  the  family  that  are  of  the  same 
color  with  the  mud.  The  village  is  generally  sheltered  by  a 
few  trees  that  first  attract  the  eye  in  the  distance  and  show 
where  the  people  live.  The  palm,  the  banyan,  and  the 
mango  become  as  familiar  to  the  traveler  as  the  hills,  the 
plains,  and  the  mud  cabins  of  the  people.  To  one  who  has 
been  accustomed  to  the  bright  homes  and  the  pleasant 
villages  of  America,  the  villages  of  India  seem  like  a  cloud 
on  the  landscape,  and  the  cloud  looks  darker  in  the  distance 
when  once  we  have  been  inside  the  mud  cabins  and  seen  for 
ourselves  how  comfortless  and  dreary  they  are.  So  long  as 
the  natives  have  nothing  but  mud  huts  for  homes,  it  will  be 
hard  to  lift  them  to  a  higher  civilization  or  a  purer  life. 

When  the  common  people  of  India  come  under  the 
instruction  of  the  missionary  and  they  receive  the  healing 
and  inspiring  truths  of  the  gospel  into  their  hearts,  one  of 
the  first  outward  results  of  the  new  life  is  seen  in  the  effort 
to  improve  their  wretched  habitations  and  make  them  more 
like  Christian  homes.     I  have  visited  the  houses  of  Christian 


192  MORNIXG   LIGHT   IX  MANY  LANDS. 

natives,  and  the  first  glance  inside  was  enough  to  tell  me 
that  something  better  than  Hinduism  had  touched  the 
hearts  and  quickened  the  minds  of  the  occupants.  Neat- 
ness and  order  had  taken  the  place  of  filth  and  confusion  ; 
separate  apartments  had  been  made  for  different  members  of 
the  family  ;  the  ground  outside  had  been  set  with  trees  and 
flowers  and  made  attractive  to  children,  that  they  might  be 
kept  from  the  vice  and  the  vulgarity  of  the  heathen  village 
and  the  common  street. 

One  object  which  arrests  the  attention  of  the  traveler 
in  Southern  India  and  Ceylon  may  seem  at  first  thought  to 
conflict  with  the  statement  that  there  is  little  pity  for 
the  poor  and  the  toiling  in  heathen  lands.  It  is  called  a 
burden-bearer.  It  is  a  convenience  for  coolies  and  porters 
of  every  kind,  but  it  would  have  no  value  in  countries  where 
living  men  and  women  are  not  made  packhorses  to  carry  all 
manner  of  burdens.  Sometimes  it  is  a  broad  brick  or  stone 
wall  builc  beside  the  public  road,  eight  or  ten  feet  long  and 
as  high  as  a  man's  head.  Sometimes  'it  is  only  two  upright 
posts  of  wood  or  stone  and  a  cross-piece  reaching  from  one 
to  the  other  and  of  the  same  height  as  the  wall.  It  gener- 
ally stands  under  a  banyan  or  a  tamarind  tree  and  beside  a 
fountain  or  tank  of  water.  The  weary  coolie,  staggering 
under  the  load  on  his  head,  is  glad  to  lay  off  his  burden  on 
this  support  without  stooping  to  the  ground,  and  then  rest 
for  a  while,  bathe  himself  in  the  tank,  and  sleep  under  the 
shade  of  the  tree.  When  he  rises  to  resume  his  walk,  his 
load  is  already  lifted  to  the  height  of  his  shoulders.  So  the 
wall  or  framework  is  called  a  burden-bearer.  To  build  one 
is  thought    to  be  a  work  of   great  merit ;    and   the    builder 


HAVING  EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  193 

hopes  to  reap  the  reward  of  his  labor  and  expense  in  a  future 
state  of  being.  The  man  whose  next  birth  might  make  him 
the  brother  of  the  swine  may  purchase  for  himself  the  privi- 
lege of  being  born  into  a  higher  caste  of  humanity,  by  build- 
ing one  of  these  rests  for  the  weary  by  the  roadside  where 
multitudes  are  always  passing.  If  he  goes  farther  and  plants 
a  tree  for  a  shade  and  digs  the  ground  for  a  tank,  in  which 
the  weary  may  wash,  he  will  be  all  the  more  sure  to  pur- 
chase for  himself  a  good  estate  in  the  next  life.  It  is  not 
supposed  or  claimed  in  either  case,  however,  that  the  builder 
is  influenced  at  all  by  pity  for  the  poor  and  heavy  laden.  He 
only  wishes  to  make  a  good  bargain  with  destiny  and  pur- 
chase for  himself  a  better  lot  in  the  next  life. 

Under  English  rule  in  India  broad,  smooth  highways  have 
been  constructed  through  large  portions  of  the  country,  so 
that  the  place  of  porters  is  often  taken  by  beasts  of  burden. 
Bandys  and  bullock  carts  move  slowly  along,  the  wheels 
creaking  aloud  and  the  cart  groaning  under  the  heavy  load 
of  humanity  and  household  goods.  The  driver  sits  under 
cover  at  the  tail  of  the  oxen  and  a  cloud  of  dust  marks  the 
course  of  the  caravan  across  the  plain.  It  often  looks  as  if 
it  were  moving  day  between  villages,  and  whole  families 
with  all  their  earthly  goods  were  on  the  road.  The  covered 
bandys  are  filled  with  the  motley  mass  of  living  humanity, 
old  and  young,  men,  women,  and  children.  The  clatter  of 
pots  and  kettles  and  earthen  jars  is  louder  than  the  clamor 
of  voices,  for  the  travelers  are  generally  very  still.  They 
move  very  slowly,  for  nobody  is  ever  in  a  hurry  in  these  old 
countries  of  the  East,  where  centuries  of  history  pass  over 
the  peoples  and   races  and  leave  them  just   as  they  found 


194  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

them.  They  see  no  reason  for  quickening  their  steps,  for 
there  is  nothing  better  in  the  future  to  run  after,  and  there 
is  nothing  bad  in  the  past  that  they  can  get  away  from  by 
hurrying.  The  days  of  all  are  written  in  one  great  book  of 
destiny  and  it  is  not  for  man  to  contend  with  fate.  Take 
what  time  is  given  :  nobody  can  get  any  more.  Sleep  in  the 
sun,  dream  on  your  journey,  dig  while  you  can,  and  die  when 
you  must.  The  gods  will  have  their  own  way  with  us  all, 
and  we  are  no  more  in  their  hands  than  the  dust  which  the 
hot  wind  blows  along  the  road  where  the  rumbling  wheels 
and  the  trampling  feet  stir  it  up.  Neither  the  faith  nor  the 
philosophy  of  the  drowsy  East  can  go  farther  than  that. 
The  newcomers  upon  the  scene  of  action  find  all  places  full, 
and  they  look  so  much  like  their  predecessors  that  the  depart- 
ing leave  no  vacancy  and  the  coming  make  no  crowd.  Thou- 
sands can  be  spared  and  nobody  be  missed,  and  thousands 
come  to  fill  their  place,  and  yet  the  country  never  is  full. 

So  the  stream  of  life  flows  on,  age  after  age,  in  the  great 
and  populous  East,  and  so  it  must  flow  on  until  the  coming 
of  new  life  from  nations  that  have  heard  the  glad  tidings  of 
peace  on  earth  and  good  will  towards  men.  Let  that  message 
come  to  the  degraded  millions  of  the  East  and  it  will  make 
the  world  and  all  things  therein  new  to  them  ;  it  will  lift 
the  heavy  burdens  from  weary  shoulders  ;  it  will  bring  the 
light  of  peace  and  kindness  into  the  habitations  of  cruelty; 
it  will  drive  the  imaginary  hosts  of  demons  and  spirits  of 
evil  from  the  homes  and  paths  of  men  ;  it  will  bring  angels 
of  mercy  to  guard  their  dwellings  and  direct  their  steps  in 
all  their  ways  ;  it  will  take  away  the  great  horror  which 
broods  over  death,  and  open  to  the  vision  of  the  dying  the 


HAVING  EYES  AND   SEEING  NOT.  1 95 

prospect  of  a  land  where  pain  and  sorrow  can  never  come; 
it  will  bring  out  the  oppressed  and  the  enslaved  into  the 
glorious  light  and  Hberty  of  the  children  of  God.  The  poor 
pariah  of  India,  scoffed  at  and  spit  upon  by  the  proud 
Brahmin,  the  naked  coolie  of  China  carrying  burdens  in  the 
street  or  toiling  in  the  muddy  rice  field,  will  look  up  with 
surprise  and  joy  at  the  great  discovery  that  he  too  is  a  man, 
made  in  God's  image,  endowed  with  the  infinite  inheritance 
of  immortality. 

When  the  ancient  East  is  filled  with  a  population  who 
rejoice  in  the  divine  truth  of  the  Christian  faith  and  live  in 
the  divine  character  of  Christian  love,  there  will  come  a  new 
and  great  era  of  riches  and  power  and  glory  to  those  lands 
that  have  been  for  ages  devastated  by  famine  and  war  and 
darkened  by  superstition  and  idolatry.  It  is  for  the  dawn  of 
that  day  that  we  offer  our  prayer  when  we  say,  "  Thy  king- 
dom come."  It  is  to  hasten  the  answer  to  that  petition  that 
we  send  our  missionary  brethren  to  preach  the  glorious  gos- 
pel of  the  Son  of  God  to  those  who  sit  in  darkness  and  in 
the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death.  It  was  to  see  them  in 
their  chosen  fields,  and  if  possible  to  speak  to  them  some 
word  of  sympathy  and  encouragement  in  their  toil,  that  I 
went  on  a  journey  of  many  thousand  miles  and  I  became 
familiar  for  many  months  with  the  lights  and  shadows  of 
eastern  life.  It  is  a  great  happiness  to  come  home  and  to 
say  to  all  who  will  hear  that  our  brethren  in  the  foreign  field 
are  faithful  to  their  high  and  sacred  calling  and  that  the 
blessing  of  God  is  upon  their  labor.  Slowly,  surely,  the 
dawn  brightens  in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  and  every  sign 
shows  that  the  full  day  is  drawing  near. 


XV. 


LIGHT    IN    THE    EAST. 

^  I  ^HE  prudent  mariner,  pursuing  his  voyage  in  mid-ocean, 
-*-  diligently  observ^es  the  stars,  the  clouds,  the  winds,  and 
the  sea.  It  would  be  very  rash  in  him  not  to  look  to  the 
heavens  to  find  his  place  on  the  deep  below,  or  not  to  regard 
the  signs  of  change  which  are  hung  out  in  the  brightening 
or  the  lowering  sky.  If  at  any  time  he  suspects  that  his 
ship  has  fallen  into  some  hidden  current  and  is  drifting  out 
of  its  course,  or  that  there  is  some  variation  in  the  compass 
and  that  the  needle  no  longer  points  to  the  pole,  or  a  sudden 
fall  of  the  barometer  indicates  that  some  awful  convulsion  in 
the  atmosphere  is  at  hand,  he  doubles  the  watch,  braces 
every  spar,  sets  sails  and  rigging  in  order  for  whatever  may 
come,  and  so  escapes  foundering  on  the  open  sea  or  wreck 
on  the  lee  shore. 

We  are  all  out  upon  the  great  sea  of  life,  ever  moving  on 
to  that  undiscovered  country  from  whence  none  ever  returns. 
Millions  of  others  are  associated  with  us  in  the  voyage.  We 
influence  them  and  they  influence  us  in  the  course  we  take. 
If  one  wanders  from  the  true  way,  a  thousand  others  may 
follow  and  disappear  in  darkness.  If  one  holds  high  the 
beacon  light  of  hope  and  steers  through  storm  and  sunshine 
with  undeviating  course  for  the  port  of  peace,  others  will 

196 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  1 97 

follow  his  lead   and    share  with  him    a   safe   arrival    in  the 
blest  harbor, 

Where  no  storms  ever  beat  on  the  glittering  strand, 
While  the  years  of  eternity  roll. 

So  it  becomes  us  all  to  be  diligent  and  discriminating 
students  of  the  time  in  which  we  live,  that  we  may  know 
the  currents  of  opinion  and  custom  by  which  we  are  borne 
along,  the  material  and  spiritual  forces  which  are  forming 
individual  and  national  life,  and  which  will  determine  what 
is  to  be  the  condition  and  character  of  the  human  race  on 
the  earth  in  the  ages  to  come.  Such  a  study  is  always  inter- 
esting and  profitable,  but  especially  so  to  one  who  is  visiting 
the  great  historic  scenes  of  the  past  and  is  constantly  rais- 
ing the  question,  whether  the  ages  of  darkness  and  division 
and  conflict  are  to  be  repeated  in  the  future,  or  whether  the 
human  race  will  ever  come  into  one  harmonious  and  happy 
brotherhood,  walking  together  in  the  light  of  peace  and  love, 
living  by  one  law,  and  both  promoting  and  rejoicing  in  each 
other's  welfare  as  members  of  one  family. 

The  traveler  who  makes  the  circuit  of  the  globe  must  be 
very  thoughtless  if  he  does  not  raise  such  questions  many 
times  in  the  course  of  his  long  journey.  And  he  must  be 
a  very  unintelligent  observer  if  he  does  not  see  signs  of  the 
breaking  day  in  the  dark  clouds  of  the  East.  He  has  only 
to  keep  his  eyes  open  and  his  mind  attentive,  and  he  will 
discover  tendencies  to  such  unity  among  nations  as  never 
existed  in  any  past  age.  He  will  look  forward  to  a  time 
when  one  manner  of  law  shall  be  accepted  and  obeyed  by 
all  races  of  men,  and  one  foundation  of  faith  shall  give  rest 
and  peace  to  all  human  hearts.     Some  of  these  tendencies 


198  MORNLVG   LIGHT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

arc  material,  some  are  intellectual,  some  spiritual.  If  we 
look  at  them  separately  in  the  light  of  our  time,  we  shall 
find  many  arguments  and  evidences  with  which  to  answer 
the  prophets  of  evil  who  are  continually  saying  that  the 
former  days  were  better  than  these  upon  which  we  have 
fallen  :  — 

I.  — INCREASED    FACILITIES    FOR    TRAVEL. 

The  most  apparent  and  powerful  of  all  material 
influences  which  are  now  drawing  the  nations  into  one 
family  and  giving  light  for  the  guidance  of  all  feet 
in  the  safe  way  are  the  increased  facilities  for  travel  and 
for  the  transmission  of  intelligence  all  round  the  world. 
The  railway,  the  steamship,  and  the  telegraph  are  binding 
the  tribes  and  races  of  men  together  in  bonds  of  iron 
which  are  not  fetters  of  enforced  bondage,  but  nerves  of 
living  thought  and  commanding  power.  I  stepped  into  a 
telegraph  office  in  Hongkong  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  wrote  words  which  were  in  the  capital  of  one  of 
our  southern  cities  before  sunrise  the  same  day.  They 
had  traveled  faster  than  the  sun,  and  had  completed  half 
the  circuit  of  the  globe  in  the  time  that  I  took  to  climb  the 
hill  above  the  city  and  look  down  upon  the  shipping  in  the 
harbor.  When  men  can  talk  with  each  other  at  that 
distance  apart  they  are  not  likely  to  keep  up  the  old 
heathen  notion  that  all  people  are  barbarians  but  them- 
selves. 

The  traveler  on  the  Pacific  steamer  will  find  sitting  at 
the  same  table  with  himself  one  man  who  has  just  come 
from  Australia  or  Honolulu,  another  who  is  going  to  Yoko- 
hama, Shanghai,  or  Canton  ;  still  another  whose  destination 


LIGHT  IN   THE   EAST. 


199 


is  Calcutta,  Bombay,  or  Constantinople.  If  he  stops  at 
any  one  of  the  leading  hotels  in  any  of  the  great  cities  of 
Europe,  he  will  find  in  the  same  house  persons  who  have 
recently  been  in  St.  Petersburg  or  Stockholm,  Rome  or 
Athens,  Damascus  or  Cairo,  Singapore  or  Peking.  They 
talk  with  each  other  at  the  table  and  in  the  public  con- 
veyance. They  make  known  their  nationality  and  the 
knowledge  they  have  gained  by  travel  in  different  countries. 
So  the  whole  round  world  is  bound  together  by  ties  of 
personal  acquaintance  and  common  interest  which  reach 
every  clime  of  the  inhabited  earth  and  every  member  of 
the  human  family.  So  long  as  this  open  intercourse  of 
thought  and  travel  is  maintained  it  is  impossible  for  the 
world  to  go  back  to  the  old  classic  ages  when  the  most 
intelligent  people  called  all  others  barbarians,  and  they 
fancied  that  the  remote  parts  of  the  earth  were  inhabited 
by  pigmies  a  span  high,  or  by  monsters  who  could  wade 
the  deep  places  of  the  sea  without  wetting  their  armpits 
and  use  the  tallest  pine  for  a  walking-stick.  There  are 
some  people  in  the  world  who  entertain  such  opinions  still, 
but  we  do  not  look  to  them  for  lessons  in  philosophy  or 
for  leadership  in  the   progress  of  the  human  mind. 

All  the  means  and  instrumentalities  of  western  and 
Christian  civilization  are  fast  becoming  the  property  of 
all  the  millions  of  the  East.  The  works  of  the  useful 
arts,  the  manufactures  of  industry,  the  machines  and 
inventions  for  daily  use  in  the  shop  and  field  and  home, 
and  the  cultivated  products  of  the  earth,  travel  as  fast  and 
as  far  as  the  men  that  work  in  the  shops,  ride  in  cars  or 
ships,  or  till  the  ground   in   their  own  chosen   land.     What- 


200  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

ever  is  made  or  grown  in  any  country  is  as  sure  to  go 
where  it  is  wanted  for  the  use  of  man  as  the  clouds  are 
sure  to  gather  on  the  mountains  or  the  rain  to  water  and 
fertilize  the  earth.  And  as  this  free  communication  of 
the  products  and  industries  of  nature  goes  on  increasing, 
the  prejudices  and  hostilities  of  the  early  ages  must  abate 
and  the  wastes  of  war  must  cease.  When  men  are  brought 
so  near  each  other  that  they  can  send  morning  messages 
of  salutation  round  the  globe,  and  speak  to  each  other  so 
that  the  voice  of  each  shall  be  recognized  across  the 
ocean,  they  cannot  afford  to  call  each  other  foreign  devils 
and  barbarians.  The  brotherhood  of  nations  becomes  a 
necessity  when  continents  have  become  only  separate 
apartments  in  one  house,  and  the  fire  that  warms  and 
the  food  that  supports  and  the  harvest  that  enriches  are 
the  same  to  all. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  poet  could  truly  say  :  — 

Lands  intersected  by  a  narrow  frith 
Abhor  each  other.     Mountains  interposed 
Make  enemies  of  nations,  who  had  else 
Lii<e  kindred  drops  been  mingled  into  one. 

But  the  narrow  frith  is  now  most  apt  to  be  spanned  by  an 
iron  bridge  or  crossed  every  hour  by  a  steam  ferry.  The 
mountains  have  been  tunneled  for  the  railway  train.  And 
the  people  living  on  each  side  are  so  mingled  together  by 
trade  and  talk  and  travel  that  they  forget  their  prejudices 
and  hostilities  and  live  as  friends  and  neighbors.  Railways 
and  telegraphs  keep  the  peace  between  nations  better  than 
standing  armies  or  city  walls  or  ships  of  war.  The  proposed 
tunnel   under  the   British   Channel,  connecting  France  and 


LIGHT  IN  THE  EAST.  20I 

England,  instead  of  exposing  England  to  invasion  from  the 
continent,  as  military  men  fear,  will  be  the  strongest  bond 
binding  the  two  nations  on  either  side  of  the  channel 
to  keep  the  peace.  China  keeps  her  walls  and  refuses  to 
dredge  out  the  bars  of  her  rivers  because  she  is  striving  to 
live  in  an  age  long  gone  by.  Her  best  protection  will  be 
to  throw  down  her  walls,  clean  out  her  rivers  for  free  naviga- 
tion, and  stretch  out  lines  of  railways  through  all  her  prov- 
inces. If  the  present  government  cannot  live  in  the  hearts 
of  an  intelligent  people  and  in  the  growing  light  of  the 
world,  it  will  have  to  die  and  be  buried  with  the  sages  whose 
lessons  have  lost  their  meaning  to  the  thinking  mind  and 
their  value  in  the  better  organization  of  human  society. 

The  knight  errant  of  the  Middle  Ages  going  up  and  down 
the  world  to  find  somebody  to  fight  with  him,  the  feudal 
barons  living  in  castles  on  the  Rhine  and  in  the  Black 
Forest  and  desolating  the  country  round  with  robbery  and 
murder,  the  free  towns  of  Germany  and  Italy  keeping  up 
desperate  war  with  each  other  for  years  upon  the  slightest 
provocation,  could  never  exist  in  an  age  when  telegraphs 
communicate  intelligence  with  the  speed  of  the  lightning  and 
railway  trains  cross  a  kingdom  in  a  single  night.  When 
steam  cars  were  introduced  into  England,  some  "  fine  old 
English  gentlemen,  all  of  the  olden  time,"  thought  them 
vulgar,  a  plebeian  conveyance,  fit  only  for  men  who  earned 
their  living  with  their  own  toil  and  paid  their  honest  debts 
without  help  from  government  pensions  or  rent  from  entailed 
estates.  Lords  and  ladies  of  the  realm  must  ride  with  a 
coach  and  four  and  with  liveried  servants  and  lackeys  for 
outriders  and  coachmen.     And  so  for  a  while  the  peers  and 


202  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  princes  would  not  ride  in  the  train.  But  the  progress  of 
the  age  was  too  mighty  for  even  them.  They  could  not 
be  content  to  ride  six  miles  an  hour  in  a  coach,  when  their 
servants  were  riding  si.xty  in  the  cars.  And  now  kings  and 
queens,  emperor  and  kaiser  and  czar,  must  take  the  train 
like  common  men,  and  the  steam  horse  carries  one  as  swiftly 
and  as  willingly  as  the  other. 

Still  later,  when  the  railway  trains  first  began  to  disturb 
the  sleep  of  ages  in  India,  the  low-caste  natives  looked  on 
the  strange,  loud-hissing,  fire-breathing  monster  that  drew 
the  cars  with  silent  and  stupid  wonder ;  the  high  castes  stood 
aloof  with  affected  indifference  and  proud  contempt  ;  the 
Brahmin  thought  them  fit  only  for  coolies  and  pariahs,  the 
refuse  and  the  offscouring  of  humanity.  The  latter  would 
not  soil  his  boasted  divine  descent  from  the  head  of  Brahma 
by  riding  in  the  same  train  with  the  vulgar  herd  who 
sprang  from  the  feet  and  were  fit  only  to  be  trodden  in 
the  dust.  The  coolies  were  afraid  to  get  aboard,  though 
they  could  ride  third  class  at  a  small  fraction  of  a  cent  a 
mile.  Among  all  the  legends  of  the  mighty  doings  of  their 
millions  of  gods,  they  had  never  heard  of  anything  that 
seemed  to  them  so  awful  an  embodiment  of  power  and 
terror  as  the  traveling  steam  engine.  The  miracles  of 
Brahma  and  Vishnu  and  Siva  were  only  stories  told  by  the 
gurus  and  believed  by  the  people,  but  nobody  had  seen  them 
with  his  own  eyes.  But  here  was  a  fiery  monster  that  swept 
across  the  plain  faster  than  the  typhoon,  the  sun  was  dark- 
ened by  the  cloud  of  its  breath  and  the  earth  shook  with  the 
sound  of  its  coming.  They  would  not  trust  themselves  in 
the  train  of  such  a  loud-hissing  demon  any  more  than  they 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  203 

would  dare  defy  the  thunder-god  of  the  clouds  or  the  storm 
spirits  of  the  deep.  The  Brahmins  said  it  was  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  wonders  that  men  had  seen  of  old  when 
Krishna  danced  with  the  milkmaids  and  Hanuman  built  a 
highway  through  the  sea.  Yet  it  was  as  much  from  fear 
as  from  affected  contempt  that  they  refrained  for  a  while 
from  defiling  themselves  with  the  wicked  and  demoniac 
invention  from  the  West. 

But  the  trains  kept  running  all  the  same,  leaving  rajahs 
and  Brahmins,  coolies  and  pariahs,  to  get  aboard  or  stay 
behind,  just  as  they  chose.  The  first  act  of  condescension 
on  the  part  of  a  great  rajah  was  to  send  an  order  for  the 
train  to  wait  at  the  station  till  it  suited  his  pride  and  indo- 
lence to  come.  But  to  his  unspeakable  astonishment  he 
found  that  his  order  had  no  more  influence  upon  the  train 
than  it  would  have  had  upon  the  moon  or  the  tide.  The 
train  had  been  gone  an  hour  when  he  arrived  at  the  station 
an  hour  late.  Now,  at  last,  the  Brahmin  and  the  great 
rajah  have  learned  that  they  are  not  lords  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  that  all  the  world  was  not  made  for 
them.  They  have  made  up  their  minds  to  submit  to  the 
inevitable.  Both  ride  in  the  same  train  with  the  coolie, 
who  once  was  obliged  to  step  five  rods  from  the  road  to 
let  a  Brahmin  pass.  Even  the  proud  rajah  runs  to  get 
aboard  when  the  station  master  gives  the  signal  for  starting. 

I  saw  one  of  the  proudest  of  the  princes  of  India,  a  great 
maharajah,  on  the  platform  of  the  station  at  Patna.  He  was 
clothed  with  purple  and  fine  linen.  He  was  belted  with  gold 
bands  and  blazing  with  diamonds.  He  was  surrounded  with 
a  retinue   of    servants  and  minor  chiefs.     If    he  spoke   to 


204  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

them,  they  approached  him  bending  the  whole  body  and 
clasping  their  hands  as  if  worshiping  Brahma  himself.  One 
kneeled  to  place  the  long  pipestem  between  his  lips  and  to 
hold  it  while  he  took  a  whiff.  It  would  be  servile  for  his 
highness  to  put  forth  his  hand  and  take  the  pipe  himself. 
Another  kneeled  to  adjust  his  slipper,  which  was  slightly 
out  of  place.  He  seemed  to  have  no  more  care  of  himself 
than  an  infant  a  week  old.  But  suddenly  the  steam  whistle 
gave  the  signal  to  start  the  train.  The  servants  did  not 
bow  or  clasp  hands  at  that  call.  They  ran  with  the  utmost 
speed  to  get  their  places  in  the  third-class  car,  where  they 
rode.  And  his  high-and-mightiness,  the  great  rajah  him- 
self, had  to  run  too,  with  no  one  to  carry  his  pipe  or  pick 
up  his  golden  slipper  if,  in  his  unprincely  haste,  he  should 
chance  to  drop  one  from  his  foot.  His  car  was  in  the  same 
train  with  the  vulgar  herd,  and  he  must  go  with  them  or 
not  go  at  all.  It  was  a  great  fall  for  the  proud  princes  of 
India,  who  reckoned  their  descent  from  Aurungzebe  and 
Jehangir  and  Shah  Jehan.  But  I  thought  it  a  sign  of  the 
rise  of  the  millions  of  the  people,  and  I  rejoiced  for  their 
sake,   and   I  wasted  no  pity  on  the  princes. 

Self-interest  in  the  end  overcame  the  fear  of  the  ignorant, 
the  contempt  of  the  conceited,  and  the  pride  of  the  princes. 
And  now  sudras  and  Brahmins  and  rajahs  ride  in  the  same 
train  ;  high-caste  and  low-caste  sit  on  the  same  seat ;  men, 
who  would  not  voluntarily  come  within  five  rods  of  each 
other  fifty  years  ago,  are  so  closely  packed  in  the  flying 
train  that  all  regard  for  caste  distinctions  must  be  given  up. 
All  must  yield  to  the  pleasure  and  the  profit  of  riding  so 
fast  and  so  far,  so  cheaply  and  so    comfortably,  instead  of 


LIGHT  IN   THE   EAST.  205 

plodding  along  the  dusty  roads  in  the  hot  sun  for  days  and 
weeks  to  reach  some  sacred  shrine  to  worship  or  some  sacred 
river  to  wash  in.  The  holy  place  will  make  the  pilgrimage 
holy,  in  whatever  way  the  pilgrims  travel,  and  the  holy 
water  will  wash  away  all  sin  and  all  defilement  contracted 
from  contact  with  the  strange  arts  and  devices  of  the  West. 
The  railway  humbles  the  proud  without  intending  it,  and  it 
lifts  up  the  lowly  by  carrying  them  as  fast  and  as  far  as  the 
richest  and  mightiest  can  go.  So  the  railway  gradually 
breaks  down  the  barrier  which  caste  had  built  up  between 
people  of  the  same  race  as  high  as  heaven  and  as  deep  as 
the  grave.  All  improvements  in  the  practical  arts  have  the 
same  tendency  in  the  old  lands  of  the  East,  where  every- 
thing has  been  done  in  the  same  way  for  ages  and  it  is 
thought  to  be  a  sufficient  reason  for  any  custom  that  the 
fathers  of  a  long  past  generation  did  so.  The  East  will 
never  be  free  till  the  iron  yoke  of  caste  and  custom  is 
broken  from  the  necks  of  high  and  low. 

So,  too,  all  over  the  world,  railways  and  telegraphs  and 
steamships  are  breaking  down  the  walls  of  separation 
between  castes  and  classes,  tribes  and  nations,  destroying 
the  old  factitious  distinctions  which  have  lifted  up  the 
proud  and  trodden  down  the  poor  for  ages.  Everywhere 
the  rising  order  of  things  is  putting  each  individual  man  in 
his  right  place  as  a  member  of  the  one  great  family  and 
household  of  faith,  truth,  and  humanity.  Railways  and 
telegraphs  and  steamships  are  indeed  not  Christian  institu- 
tions. They  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  men  who  use  them 
for  very  unchristian  purposes.  But  they  are  direct  out- 
growths of  that  intellectual  and  spiritual   quickening  which 


206  A/OA'A'LVG  LIGHT  IN  MAiXY  LANDS. 

Christianity  has  imparted  to  the  human  mind.  They  never 
would  have  been  invented  by  a  heathen  people.  Heathen- 
ism lives  only  in  the  past  :  it  has  no  future.  Two  thousand 
years  ago  heathenism  was  talking  and  writing  about  a  golden 
age  and  a  silver  age,  both  even  then  long  gone  by  and  never 
to  return.  Its  great  misfortune  was  to  live  in  an  age  of 
iron.  It  did  not  then  know,  and  it  does  not  now  know, 
that  the  age  of  iron  is  the  age  of  progress  and  of  power, 
of  invention  and  of  improvement  of  every  kind.  The  world 
can  get  on  much  better  without  gold  than  it  can  without 
iron.  Railways  and  steamships  and  telegraphs,  printing 
presses  and  mowing  machines,  power  looms  and  cotton  gins, 
all  belong  to  the  age  of  iron  in  which  heathenism  has  no 
hope. 

When  heathenism  was  high  and  mighty,  towering  in  its 
pride  of  place  over  all  the  great  nations  of  ancient  times, 
it  never  lifted  up  the  people,  it  never  poured  light  upon  the 
path  of  the  wandering,  it  never  brought  rest  to  the  weary 
or  comfort  to  the  sorrowing  or  hope  to  those  whose  dwell- 
ing was  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death.  When  art 
and  eloquence  had  reached  the  highest  pitch  of  cultivation 
in  ancient  Athens,  there  were  twenty  slaves  to  one  free 
man  in  the  proud  democracy  which  claimed  to  be  the  eye 
of  Greece.  When  the  Pharaohs  in  Egypt  carved  obelisks 
and  built  temples  and  tombs  that  are  still  the  wonder  of 
the  world,  the  life  of  one  of  their  human  subjects  was  less 
sacred  than  the  life  of  the  beetle  in  the  dunghills  of  the 
Nile.  So,  now,  heathenism  can  only  boast  of  temples  and 
tombs  and  statues  and  shrines  which  were  made  a  long  time 
ago  and  which   stand   now  as   the  blind,  bewildering,  stony 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


207 


dream  of  an  age  which  never  can  come  again  and  which,  if 
it  could  come  back,  would  only  bring  war  and  darkness  and 
death  unto  the  nations.  The  age  of  travel  and  of  swift 
communication  over  all  the  earth,  the  age  when  thousands, 
millions  run  to  and  fro  and  gather  knowledge  of  all  things 
best  worth  knowing,  is  the  Christian  age,  the  age  which  is 
shedding  its  morning  light  in  many  lands  and  which  will 
shine  with  ever-increasing  brightness  unto  the  perfect  day. 

II.  PROGRESS  IN  THE  USEFUL  ARTS. 

Another  sign  of  light  in  the  East  is  progress  in  the 
mechanical  and  useful  arts.  The  rapid  diffusion  of  all 
tools,  implements,  inventions  of  everyday  use,  is  doing 
much  to  bring  the  nations  together  and  especially  to  lift  up 
the  common  people  of  the  oldest  inhabited  countries  from 
ignorance  and  degradation.  The  great  works  of  ancient 
times  were  done  to  glorify  kings  and  conquerors,  to  gratify 
the  pride  and  ambition  of  the  princes  and  oppressors  of 
mankind.  One  pyramid  of  Egypt  exhausted  the  revenues 
of  a  whole  kingdom  and  it  cost  the  lives  of  a  hundred 
thousand  laborers.  And  when  it  was  done  it  was  worth 
nothing,  either  as  a  work  of  art  or  of  utility.  It  did 
nothing  to  improve  the  outward  condition  or  the  personal 
character  of  a  single  one  of  the  millions  that  dwelt  in  the 
valley  of  the  Nile.  It  made  a  tomb  for  one  dead  Pharaoh, 
when  his  death  would  have  been  a  blessing  to  multitudes 
had  not  another  come  after  him  just  as  proud,  cruel,  and 
oppressive  as  he  had  been.  The  Coliseum  at  Rome  was 
built  out  of  the  spoils  of  conquered  nations.  It  served  no 
other  purpose  for  centuries  than  to  brutalize  the  population. 


208  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

of  the  imperial  city  and  hasten  the  downfall  of  the  empire. 
The  mighty  walls  and  imperial  palaces  of  Babylon  were  all 
built  for  one  man,  "for  the  house  of  his  kingdom  and  for 
the  honor  of  his  majesty."  The  great  stones  of  Baalbec 
were  cut  out  of  the  mountain  and  moved  across  the  plain 
to  their  places  in  the  temple  of  Baal  to  gratify  a  despot 
rather  than  to  worship  the  god.  The  beautiful  Parthenon 
of  Athens,  the  renowned  Temple  of  Diana  at  Ephesus,  were 
all  expressions  of  an  age  when  millions  were  made  slaves 
that  one  man  might  be  dreaded  as  a  tyrant  or  worshiped  as 
a  god. 

In  India  to-day  the  story  is  the  same.  The  beautiful 
tomb,  called  the  Taj  Mahal,  at  Agra,  at  the  sight  of  which 
enthusiastic  travelers  go  into  raptures  of  admiration,  the 
great  mosque  and  palace  of  Delhi,  the  cave  temples  of  Elora 
and  Elephanta,  the  grotesque  towers  or  gopuras  of  Madura 
and  Tinnevelly,  represent  enormous  cost  in  labor  and  skill 
and  time,  but  they  never  did  anything  to  bring  light  and 
instruction  and  hope  into  the  hearts  and  homes  of  the 
people.  They  lifted  no  burdens  from  the  shoulders  of  the 
weary,  they  plucked  no  sting  of  sorrow  from  suffering 
hearts,  they  shed  no  light  upon  the  pathway  of  the  future 
for  the  parting  souls  of  men.  They  were  forced  sacrifices 
to  tyrants,  who  lived  in  lust  and  luxury,  or,  even  worse,  they 
were  the  willing  offerings  of  debased  and  darkened  wor- 
shipers to  gods  more  base  and  brutal  than  themselves.  So 
with  the  great  works  of  heathen  nations  both  in  ancient 
and  modern  times.  Their  whole  aim  and  influence  were  to 
perpetuate  and  glorify  war,  to  strengthen  oppression,  to 
establish  the  thrones  of  iniquity,  and  to  confirm  the  reign 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


209 


of  darkness  and  superstition.  To  regard  them  with  any- 
thing like  feelings  of  admiration  or  pleasure,  we  must  forget 
the  object  for  which  they  were  built  and  the  miseries  which 
they  brought  upon  millions.  In  our  most  favorable  judg- 
ment we  must  look  upon  them  as  splendid  monuments  of 
wasted  toil  and  perverted  art. 

It  is  one  of  the  hopeful  signs  of  our  time  that  the  art, 
the  skill,  the  invention  of  ingenious  men  are  now  directed 
to  the  improvement  of  the  people,  the  increase  of  the  com- 
forts of  life  and  the  means  of  subsistence  to  all  that  dwell 
on  the  face  of  all  the  earth.  The  simplest  and  most  com- 
mon tool,  instrument,  or  engine,  which  relieves  human 
muscles  and  improves  and  multiplies  the  products  of  human 
industry,  is  a  greater  blessing  to  the  world  than  Cleopatra's 
Needles  or  the  mighty  Coliseum  at  Rome.  We  wonder  as 
we  gaze  at  these  great  works  of  ancient  and  modern  hea- 
then nations  ;  but  we  are  glad  to  think  that  the  world  will 
never  have  any  more  of  them.  The  world  has  now  better 
uses  for  its  men  and  its  money  than  to  build  tombs  costing 
millions  for  the  burial  of  one  despot,  or  to  cut  temples  out 
of  the  solid  mountain  for  the  worship  of  demons.  It  is  not 
for  the  want  of  wealth  or  skill  or  power  that  Christian 
nations  in  modern  times  do  not  repeat  the  architectural 
follies  of  ancient  heathenism.  Many  single  individuals  in 
America,  out  of  their  own  private  resources,  could  surpass 
all  the  monumental  structures  of  the  Pharaohs  and  the 
Caesars.  Surely  the  man  who  originates  a  railway  system, 
which  supports  a  hundred  thousand  men  and  increases  the 
wealth  and  comfort  of  millions,  is  deserving  of  more  honor 
than  the  man  who  spends  as  much   in   building  a  tomb  to 


2IO  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

perpetuate  a  name  that  had  better  be  forgotten,  or  a  temple 
for  the  worship  of  a  god  that  has  no  existence. 

I  saw  advertisements  for  the  sale  of  the  Waterbury  watch, 
filling  whole  columns  in  newspapers  and  large  spaces  on  the 
outer  walls  of  buildings,  all  over  India.  I  heard  the  hum 
of  the  American  sewing  machine  in  the  byways  and  broad 
streets  of  Bombay  and  Calcutta  and  Rangoon.  I  saw  Amer- 
ican lamps  for  burning  American  petroleum  hawked  about 
the  streets  on  wheelbarrows  for  sale  in  Yokohama  and 
Tokyo  and  Shanghai.  I  heard  the  clatter  of  the  American 
typewriter  in  Che-Foo  and  Tientsin  and  Swatow  and  Aintab. 
I  heard  American  dentistry  praised  as  the  best  in  the  world, 
and  I  traveled  with  an  American  dentist  who  was  on  his  way 
to  practice  his  profession  in  the  city  of  Peking.  I  after- 
wards received  his  printed  circular,  announcing  his  arrival 
in  the  great  imperial  capital  and  his  readiness  to  extract  the 
molars  of  mandarins  or  fill  the  cavities  of  Confucianists  in 
the  most  approved  style  of  American  art. 

I  was  glad  that  the  genius  and  the  skill  and  the  in- 
vention of  my  countrymen  were  put  before  the  people  of 
the  East  in  so  practical  and  useful  a  form.  I  was  much 
better  pleased  than  I  should  have  been  if  I  had  fallen  into 
the  company  of  an  ingenious  and  enterprising  Yankee,  who 
had  adopted  the  Chinese  dress,  shaven  the  front  of  his 
head,  and  cultivated  a  pigtail,  and  was  proposing  to  teach 
the  people  of  that  land  how  to  build  temples  and  tombs 
and  pagodas  equal  to  those  built  in  the  best  days  of  their 
fathers.  We  do  not  need  to  go  to  China  to  build  pagodas 
or  to  decorate  pottery  or  embroider  silk  or  carve  ivory.  For 
two  thousand  years  the  Chinese  have  known  and  practiced 


LIGHT  LV   THE   EAST.  2  1  I 

all  that  better  than  we  can  teach  them.  But  they  do  need 
somebody  to  teach  them  those  homely  and  practical  arts 
which  relieve  labor  and  lift  up  the  poor  out  of  poverty  and 
increase  the  value  of  life  to  every  man  that  lives.  The 
building  of  temples  and  palaces  and  tombs,  the  adornment 
of  vases  and  urns  and  ivory,  has  never  made  the  people  of 
the  East  rich  or  intelligent  or  happy.  They  have  done  all 
that  for  ages  and  in  the  m.ost  exquisite  manner,  and  they 
are  still  ignorant  and  impoverished  and  degraded.  They 
need  men  from  the  West  to  teach  them  the  divine,  the 
Christian  art,  which  adorns  and  improves  everything  it 
touches  —  that  divine,  Christian  truth,  which  re-creates  and 
beautifies  man  himself  in  the  image  and  after  the  pattern 
of  Him  who  made  man  at  the  first.  The  Chinaman  needs 
to  learn  that  the  restored  image  of  God  in  the  soul  is  the 
perfection  of  all  beauty,  outlasting  temples  and  monuments 
made  with  human  hands  and  growing  brighter  and  more 
glorious  forever. 

I  am  well  aware  that  some  persons  among  us,  who  make 
high  pretensions  to  fine  taste  and  aesthetic  sensibility,  put  a 
very  low  estimate  upon  the  value  of  the  practical  arts.  They 
speak  of  them  as  only  vulgar,  material,  mercenary,  fit  only  to 
stimulate  the  passion  for  money  getting,  and  exalting  the 
man  who  has  made  his  millions  above  the  man  whose  riches 
are  of  the  mind  and  soul.  Such  critics  would  go  into  ecsta- 
sies of  admiration  over  a  peach-bloom  vase  which  had  cost 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  or  a  piece  of  Satsuma  ware  which 
was  said  to  be  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  old.  But 
I  cannot  forget  that  the  eastern  artists  who  made  the  pot- 
tery have  lived   in    hovels   and   mud   cabins   and    eaten   rice 


212  MORNING  UGIir  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

for  a  thousand  years.  Their  fine  taste  and  their  wonderful 
skill  in  making  things  not  necessary  for  human  use  have 
not  raised  them  out  of  the  dust  and  degradation  in  which 
they  were  born.  They  have  never  devised,  invented,  or 
discovered  any  means  or  instruments  by  which  the  burdens 
on  their  shoulders  could  be  lightened  or  the  clouds  upon 
their  minds  could  be  scattered. 

In  America  the  common  mechanics  who  make  watches 
and  sewing  machines  and  steam  engines  have  elegant 
houses  and  liberal  education  and  a  great  hope  of  better 
things  for  themselves  and  for  all  the  world.  They  do  not 
ask  either  to  be  pitied  for  their  poverty  or  to  be  praised  for 
their  ingenuity.  With  God's  help  and  a  good  education 
they  can  take  care  of  themselves  and  let  their  work  praise 
them.  I  have  heard  of  a  brilliant  popular  lecturer  who 
talks  with  great  freedom  and  volubility  upon  the  beautiful 
decoration  which  the  poor  Japanese  artist  puts  upon  a  vase 
or  a  teacup,  and  then  exclaims,  with  well-affected  astonish- 
ment and  indignation,  against  the  absurdity  of  sending  mis- 
sionaries to  convert  such  ingenious  men  to  Christianity. 
As  if  men  who  make  fine  patterns  in  pottery  and  cloisonne 
ware  could  be  anything  else  than  pure  in  heart  and  upright 
in  life  !  And  yet  I  have  been  told  by  a  physician,  who  had 
lived  and  practiced  his  profession  there  many  years,  having 
more  than  a  thousand  patients  pass  under  his  eye  in  a  week, 
that  those  ingenious  and  tasteful  artists  who  make  the  most 
prized  ornaments  of  our  parlors  and  sleeping  chambers  are 
among  the  most  loose  and  licentious  people  that  he  had  ever 
seen  or  heard  of  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  With  all  their 
fine  taste  and  wonderful   susceptibility  to  the   harmony  of 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


213 


colors  and  the  grace  of  form  and  outline,  they  are  poor  and 
ignorant  and  superstitious  ;  they  have  all  the  vices  which 
Paul  charged  upon  the  heathen  in  his  day,  and  they  have 
been  living  in  that  way  ever  since  the  apostle's  time. 
Physicians  ascribe  the  smallness  of  the  stature  and  the 
slenderness  of  the  frame  of  the  Japanese  to  the  enervating 
vices  which  the  people  have  practiced  for  ages. 

The  American  mechanic  and  day  laborer  who  makes  tools 
and  machines  and  engines  of  practical  utility  and  daily 
service  in  shop  and  house  and  field  has  a  clean  house  and 
comfortable  apartments  to  live  in,  books  to  read,  and  sources 
of  daily  information  concerning  all  things  said  and  done  all 
over  the  earth.  His  wife  is  as  intelligent  as  he  is,  and  his 
children  have  the  opportunity  to  fit  themselves  for  the 
highest  positions  of  honor  and  usefulness  in  the  world. 
The  young  children  of  the  eastern  artist  go  naked ;  his  wife 
digs  up  the  field  with  a  heavy  mattock,  or  she  gathers  offal 
in  the  street  to  enrich  the  few  rods  of  ground  which  she 
cultivates.  The  difference  between  the  personal  char- 
acter and  the  outward  life  of  the  eastern  artist  and  the 
American  mechanic  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Japanese 
has  taste  without  principle,  sentiment  without  purity,  a 
quick  susceptibility  to  form  and  color,  but  deadness  of  con- 
science that  lets  him  live  like  a  beast  and  die  as  the  brute 
dies.  He  gives  his  skill  and  the  labor  of  his  life  to  works 
that  please  the  eye  but  never  purify  the  heart.  A  house- 
ful of  his  most  beautiful  and  costly  decorations  would  never 
make  the  owner  virtuous  or  happy.  All  the  beautiful  paint- 
ings and  statuary  in  all  the  churches  and  palaces  of  Italy 
never  did  as  much   to   elevate  the  people  and   purify  their 


214  MORiVLVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

lives  as  the  spelling  book  and  the  New  Testament.  When 
the  chief  distinction  of  Rome  was  its  treasures  of  art  and 
it  was  the  gathering  place  of  artists  from  the  whole  world, 
it  had  more  ignorance  and  superstition,  more  crimes  of  sen- 
suality and  violence,  than  any  other  city  in  Europe.  When 
the  Italian  government  took  possession  of  the  city  and 
brought  with  it  railways  and  telegraphs,  schools  and  libra- 
ries ;  when  the  vile  Jewish  Ghetto  was  cleaned  out  and 
streets  were  straightened  and  old  ruins  gave  place  to  com- 
fortable houses,  —  artistic  and  sentimental  people  said  that 
the  dear  old  city  had  lost  its  charm,  its  sacred  haunts  were 
desecrated  by  modern  improvements,  its  picturesque  beggars 
and  lazzaroni  had  learned  to  read  and  to  wash  themselves, 
and  some  of  them  had  actually  begun  to  work,  and  the 
whole  city  was  becoming  so  disgustingly  clean  nnd  decent 
that  artists  and  antiquarians  would  soon  have  to  give  it  up 
and  go  home  ! 

Yet  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  homely,  practical 
arts  have  more  to  do  with  the  progress  of  the  world  and 
the  elevation  of  the  human  race  than  the  finest  paintings 
and  statuary  of  Europe  or  the  most  elaborate  vases  and 
embroideries  of  Japan.  The  work  of  the  intelligent  Amer- 
ican mechanic,  though  despised  by  professional  men  of  taste, 
is  really  of  a  higher  order  and  is  more  elevating  in  its  influ- 
ence upon  the  laborer  himself,  because  he  is  working  for 
the  common  good  of  all  mankind.  The  products  of  his  skill 
and  toil  go  to  increase  the  resources  upon  which  the  whole 
family  of  man  must  depend  for  subsistence  and  instruction 
and  improvement  in  the  great  age  of  the  future,  when  all 
people  shall  be  righteous  and  all  labor  shall  receive  its  due 


LIGHT  IX   THE  EAST.  215 

reward.  All  the  beautiful  ware  in  the  East  might  be  sunk 
in  the  depths  of  the  sea  in  a  single  night  and  nobody  would 
go  without  a  breakfast  on  that  account  the  next  morning ; 
nobody  would  find  a  dark  shadow  upon  his  path  for  the 
day;  nobody  would  find  that  the  substantial  means  of  human 
happiness  and  improvement  were  lessened  in  any  consider- 
able degree.  Put  a  few  of  the  plainest  and  commonest  of 
the  instruments  and  inventions  in  the  useful  arts  out  of 
existence  in  a  single  night  and  there  would  be  cries  of  woe 
and  looks  of  despair  in  millions  of  homes.  The  instantane- 
ous destruction  of  all  the  friction  matches  in  the  world 
would  bring  greater  distress  upon  the  human  family  than 
the  crash  of  all  the  picturesque  pottery  and  the  burning  of 
all  the  pictures  in  all  the  galleries  and  palaces  of  Rome. 
All  inventions  and  arts  which  tend  to  the  improvement 
and  happiness  of  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men  have 
come  from  Christian  nations ;  from  men  whose  minds  have 
been  quickened  into  life  by  the  divine  impulse  of  Christian 
truth  —  men  who  have  learned  the  worth  and  the  divine 
descent  of  the  individual  man  from  the  Bible  —  men  who 
are  animated  by  the  great  hope  that  a  universal  reign  of 
righteousness  and  peace  is  to  come  on  the  earth.  The 
Pyramids  and  the  Coliseum,  the  Taj  Mahal  of  Agra  and 
the  world-renowned  temples  of  a  thousand  columns  and  a 
hundred  thousand  gods,  the  decorated  vase  and  the  delicate 
tracery  of  enameled  and  inlaid  ware,  have  all  come  from 
people  who  were  shut  up  to  one  narrow  round  of  thought 
and  life,  and  who  had  no  hope  of  ever  rising  above  the 
dead  level  of  servitude  and  superstition  into  which  they 
had  been  born. 


2l6  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

And,  therefore,  I  was  glad  when  I  saw  American  tramcars 
running  in  the  streets  of  Tokyo  and  the  American  windmill 
pumping  water  on  the  bluffs  of  Yokohama.  I  was  glad 
when  I  heard  the  click  of  Connecticut  clocks  keeping  good 
time  for  the  Orientals,  who  are  always  late.  California 
canned  fruits  and  Oregon  salmon  and  Boston  baked  beans 
in  hotels  all  over  the  East  made  me  think  that  home  was 
not  so  very  far  away  and  that  the  time  was  fast  coming 
when  one  might  compass  the  globe  and  find  himself  at 
home  and  among  his  own  people  and  hearing  the  familiar 
sounds  of  his  mother  tongue  all  the  way.  And  the  fact 
that  America  is  so  often  represented  in  the  East  by  the 
homely  articles  of  practical  and  everyday  use  did  not  make 
me  wish  that  my  country  had  more  works  of  fine  art  and 
more  ruins  and  traditions  of  ancient  time. 

The  Bartlett  pear  and  the  Jersey  peach  and  the  damson 
plum  were  introduced  into  China  by  a  missionary  who  was 
the  son  of  an  American  farmer.  When  a  boy  he  learned 
to  break  colts  and  plant  fruit  trees  and  hold  the  plow  in 
western  New  York.  He  went  to  China  to  plant  the  tree 
of  life,  where  the  thorns  and  briers  of  superstition  and  igno- 
rance had  usurped  the  ground  for  ages.  When  I  saw  him 
picking  fruit  from  trees  and  vines  which  he  had  planted 
with  his  own  hands  in  his  garden,  when  I  rode  with  him  on 
a  wheelbarrow  of  his  own  making  through  the  streets  of 
Che-Foo,  with  a  horse  twenty  feet  ahead  to  draw  and  a 
Chinaman  before  and  behind  to  steady  the  vehicle,  I  thought 
him  a  good  illustration  of  the  typical  American  who  lives  in 
all  climates,  masters  all  trades,  and  gives  an  inspiration  of 
hope   to   all  people.     The   Japanese   jinriksha,  which    runs 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  2  1/ 

in  every  city  and  country  road  of  Japan,  is  the  invention  of 
an  American  missionary  whose  salary  failed  him  in  time  of 
war  and  he  was  obliged  to  turn  his  hand  to  mechanical 
work  for  a  while  to  secure  the  means  of  living.  The  Japa- 
nese persimmon,  which  grows  in  great  abundance  and 
makes  a  delicious  fruit  in  California,  was  introduced  by  an 
American  missionary  who  was  out  of  health  and  who  went 
to  California  to  recover.  He  made  thirteen  thousand  dollars 
out  of  persimmon  planting,  and  then,  having  recovered  his 
health  and  thinking  that  he  could  not  afford  to  spend  his 
time  in  making  money,  he  went  back  to  his  chosen  work  in 
Japan.  In  such  cases  it  was  the  earnest,  practical,  inventive 
2:enius  of  men  educated  in  Christian  lands  that  brought 
profit  out  of  loss  and  turned  a  personal  affliction  to  the 
advantage  of  thousands  and  millions.  Such  are  the  results 
which  flow  from  the  quickening  of  the  human  mind  wher- 
ever Christianity  prevails  all  over  the  world. 

Under  heathenism  there  is  neither  material  nor  intellec- 
tual progress  towards  a  higher  and  better  life.  The  art  of 
decorating  pottery  and  painting  screens  and  working  won- 
derfully in  ivory  had  been  in  China  for  two  thousand  years, 
and  the  people  still  lived  in  mud  houses,  children  went 
naked  in  the  street's,  and  their  parents  worshiped  the  spirits 
of  the  air  and  the  dragons  of  the  deep.  Women  dug  up 
the  field  for  planting  instead  of  turning  the  soil  with  the 
plow ;  men  pulled  grain  up  by  the  roots  instead  of  reaping 
it  with  sickles  or  mowing  it  with  scythes  ;  children  learned 
the  ways  of  their  fathers  and  plodded  on  in  the  journey  of 
life  under  the  same  weary  load  of  ignorance  and  superstition 
from  generation  to  generation.      Christianity  comes  bringing 


2l8  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

first  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and,  as  fast  as  that  is  received, 
all  useful  and  practical  arts  and  occupations  follow  in  her 
train.  Homes  are  brightened  and  beautified,  minds  are 
enlightened,  hearts  are  cheered,  and  the  people  look  up  as 
if  they  saw  the  day  of  their  redemption  from  the  bondage 
of  ages  drawing  nigh. 

III.  ADVANCE    IN    SCIENTIFIC    KNOWLEDGE. 

The  wide  and  rapid  diffusion  of  scientific  knowledge  is 
another  sign  of  light  dawning  on  the  darkness  of  the  East. 
Knowledge  of  the  common  facts  and  phenomena  in  the 
world  about  them  is  fast  bringing  the  people  of  the  East 
into  the  common  life  and  faith  of  Christian  nations.  Science 
is  fast  taking  away  from  them  the  horror  and  the  mystery 
with  which  they  had  long  been  accustomed  to  look  upon 
the  great  forms  and  forces  of  nature.  As  education  ad- 
vances, the  gods  of  wind  and  thunder  and  rain,  the  gods 
of  seas  and  earthquakes  and  famine,  give  place  to  the  facts 
which  they  learn  in  the  everyday  lesson  of  the  school  and 
the  common  observation  of  the  world.  When  the  American 
astronomers  set  up  their  instruments  for  the  observation  of 
the  transit  of  the  planet  Venus  at  Kobe,  it  was  an  open 
proclamation  to  all  the  people  of  Japan  that  science  is  the 
same  on  all  sides  of  the  globe  and  that  all  people  who  would 
live  by  the  laws  of  nature,  the  prime  facts  of  the  material 
world,  should  be  united  in  faith  and  hope  and  duty.  The 
Japanese  were  taught  most  effectually  in  that  way  that 
science  is  neither  eastern  nor  western,  but  the  same  to  all 
men  and  all  ages,  and  extending  as  far  as  the  clearest  vision 
or  the  mightiest  magnifying  power  of  man  can  reach.     The 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  219 

powers  that  rule  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  earth,  the  forces 
that  direct  the  course  of  the  seasons  and  the  productions  of 
the  earth  and  the  means  of  subsistence  to  man  and  beast, 
are  the  same  to  all  nations,  through  all  ages.  The  main 
facts  with  which  science  has  to  do  are  the  same  all  over 
the  world,  to  all  nations.  Science  is  not  theory,  it  is  not 
speculation.  Theory  and  speculation  may  stimulate  and 
direct  inquiry,  but  they  are  not  science.  Science  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  great  facts  concerning  the  mode  of  the 
divine  work  in  the  world,  what  men  call  laws  of  nature,  the 
putting  forth  of  the  infinite  power  in  guiding  and  upholding 
all  things  from  age  to  age.  Just  as  far  as  the  people  of  the 
East  learn  that  great  fact  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of  all 
science,  they  must  cease  to  be  heathen.  They  may  not  be 
Christians,  but  they  can  no  longer  be  heathen.  It  is  the 
highest  study  and  science  of  man  to  find  out  the  work  of 
God,  whose  goings  forth  through  the  whole  creation  are 
from  of  old,  whose  ways  are  everlasting.  No  system  of 
heathenism  in  the  world  can  retain  its  hold  upon  the  minds 
of  a  people  who  understand  and  accept  the  simplest  facts 
of  physical  science.  There  is  an  attempt  just  now  on  the 
part  of  educated  young  men  in  India  to  bring  the  two 
together.  They  accept  science  in  the  school  and  they 
submit  to  heathenism  at  home,  and  the  two  contradictory 
attempts  at  faith  have  a  strong  tendency  towards  utter 
unbelief. 

The  two  greatest  facts  in  physical  science  are  light  and 
gravitation.  Nobody  knows  what  either  is,  save  that  it  is 
a  mode  of  the  manifestation  of  the  one  infinite  Energy,  the 
uncreated  Mind,  that  rules  all  things.     No  matter  how  many 


220  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

theories  men  may  devise  to  explain  light  and  gravitation,  the 
facts  are  the  same  to  all  nations,  to  all  time.  And  men 
must  live  by  them  in  Japan  and  China  and  India  as  well 
as  in  Europe  and  America.  The  pyramid  and  the  pagoda 
must  be  built  in  compliance  with  the  law  of  gravitation  not 
less  than  the  church  steeple  and  the  chimney  of  the  manu- 
factory. The  sunlight,  which  lifts  millions  of  tons  of  water 
from  the  ocean  into  the  air,  and  the  ranges  of  cold  moun- 
tains, which  condense  the  invisible  vapor  into  clouds  and 
rain  to  fill  all  the  rivers  and  water  the  earth,  work  as  will- 
ingly for  the  dwellers  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Amazon  as  for  the  Chinaman,  who  thinks  the  sun 
shines  only  for  him  and  that  the  mountains  were  made  only 
to  separate  his  own  Central  Flowery  Kingdom  from  regions 
where  the  rest  of  mankind  dwell  in  cold  and  darkness.  The 
knowledge  of  these  simple  and  common  facts  in  elementary 
science  is  fast  taking  the  ignorant  conceit  out  of  the  minds 
of  men  in  the  East  and  bringing  them  to  acknowledge  their 
common  relation  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  The  most  culti- 
vated and  thoughtful  of  the  public  men  and  all  the  children 
in  the  schools  are  learning  that  they  belong  to  the  same 
family  with  us,  that  we  all  alike  have  one  Father  in  heaven, 
and  the  true  life  for  us  and  them  is  to  live  in  obedience 
to  the  same  laws  of  nature  which  God  has  put  into  the 
world,  and  the  same  laws  of  duty  which  he  has  written 
with  his  own  finger  upon  the  living  tablets  of  all  hearts. 
Science  is  not  religion,  but  it  must  always  agree  with  true 
religion  because  one  is  as  much  a  fact  as  the  other,  one 
comes  as  truly  from  God  as  the  other.  Both  teach  obedi- 
ence to  the  laws   of    life   and   duty  which   God   has   made. 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  221 

Both  inspire  reverence  and  humility  and  worship.  The 
true  Christian  looks  with  wonder  and  gratitude  upon  the 
lily  of  the  valley  which  God  has  clothed  with  beauty  sur- 
passing the  robes  of  kings,  and  upon  the  great  mountains 
which  God  has  raised  up  and  set  fast  with  his  infinite  power. 
And  the  true  man  of  science  looks  with  equal  wonder  and 
gratitude  upon  the  manifestation  of  God  in  his  works  and 
his  word. 

As  fast  as  the  people  of  the  East  find  that  their  long- 
established  religion  does  not  agree  with  the  plainest  facts 
of  science  and  of  everyday  life,  they  conclude  that  theirs 
is  no  religion  at  all.  It  is  only  a  mass  of  fables  and  super- 
stitions that  have  no  existence  save  in  the  perverted  imagi- 
nations of  men.  So  when  the  missionary  from  the  West 
brings  them  a  religion  which  harmonizes  with  all  the  laws 
of  nature  and  all  the  most  rational  convictions  of  their  own 
minds,  they  see  beyond  all  doubt  that  the  religion  from  the 
West  must  be  true  and  from  God,  and  that  therefore  it 
must  be  fitted  equally  for  men  of  the  East  and  of  the 
West  and  for  all  mankind.  The  stone  unsupported  falls  to 
the  earth  :  and  so  the  dumb  stone  confesses  the  power  of 
gravitation,  which  is  only  one  of  the  manifestations  of  the 
power  of  God.  Then,  again,  if  we  turn  to  the  spiritual 
world,  we  find  that  conscience  approves  the  right  and  con- 
demns the  wrong,  and  so  the  living  soul  confesses  the  law 
of  duty  which  God  has  written  upon  the  hearts  of  all  men. 
One  is  a  fact  of  science,  the  other  of  religion.  And  one  is 
just  as  truly  a  fact  as  the  other.  The  germinating  seed 
shoots  up  a  tender  stalk  out  of  the  dead  earth,  and  so 
confesses  the  quickening  power  of  the  sunlight.      The  soul 


222  M  OR  XING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

is  lifted  up  to  God  in  prayer,  and  so  confesses  the*  need  of 
divine  help  and  the  hope  of  securing  it  in  answer  to  its 
humble  request.  One  is  as  much  a  fact  as  the  other.  The 
growing  plant  stretching  towards  the  sun  for  life  and 
strength  and  the  living  soul  reaching  forth  to  God  for  help 
are  equally  facts  in  the  realm  of  science  and  faith. 

The  thoughtful  people  of  India  and  China  and  Japan  are 
beginning  to  see  and  to  confess  these  great  common  facts 
of  science  and  religion.  Such  are  the  reasonings  which 
they  adopt  when  they  are  disposed  to  reason  at  all.  Thus 
they  find  that  their  old  traditions  and  superstitions  have  no 
foundation  in  the  reality  of  things  about  them  in  the  world 
or  in  the  rational  convictions  of  their  own  minds.  Some- 
times, in  their  surprise  and  mortification  at  finding  all  the 
most  sacred  traditions  and  teachings  of  their  fathers  false, 
they  rush  from  the  extreme  of  believing  without  evidence, 
which  is  superstition,  to  the  extreme  of  resisting  all  evi- 
dence, which  is  skepticism.  But  the  more  considerate  and 
conscientious  see  that  there  is,  there  must  be,  a  religion 
which  comes  from  the  same  source  as  the  laws  of  nature, 
and  that  religion  must  be  in  harmony  with  all  the  great 
facts  of  science  that  are  in  the  world.  They  accept  the 
religion  of  the  Bible  and  the  science  of  the  Christian 
teacher  because  both  are  equally  true.  They  take  their 
place  willingly  and  happily  in  the  great  family  of  man, 
because  they  have  learned  to  believe  that  one  supreme  and 
everlasting  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men 
to  dwell  on  all  the  earth,  and  has  so  determined  the  times 
and  the  seasons  and  the  boundaries  of  the  habitations  of  all 
that  they  should  equally  and  gladly  seek  after  him.     The 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST.  2 23 

most  advanced  science  of  modern  times  agrees  with  the 
special  revelation  of  the  Bible  in  bringing  the  East  and 
the  West  to  the  same  conclusion. 

So  our  missionaries  all  over  the  East  teach  science  and 
Christianity  as  both  coming  from  the  one  infinite  Source  of 
truth  and  fitted  to  draw  all  men  unto  Him.  Both  agree  in 
bringing  forward  the  day  when  truth  and  righteousness  shall 
prevail  over  superstition  and  ignorance  and  error,  and  the 
one  great  Father  of  all  mankind  shall  be  equally  loved  and 
obeyed  in  every  land.  The  missionaries  believe  and  teach 
that  true  science  consists  only  in  tracing  the  workmanship 
of  God  in  the  whole  surrounding  creation.  And  they  also 
believe  and  teach  that  the  revelation  of  God  in  the  Bible  is 
given  to  help  us  understand  God's  work  wherever  we  can 
find  it  and  enrich  ourselves  with  the  treasures  of  truth  with 
which  God  has  stored  the  whole  creation.  When  the  hea- 
then accept  that  twofold  teaching  their  land  will  yield  its 
increase  without  recurrence  of  famine,  their  habitations  will 
be  filled  with  light,  and  their  hearts  will  be  lifted  up  with 
immortal  hope. 

IV.  —  DIFFUSION    OF    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE. 

Another  sign  of  light  dawning  in  the  East  and  of 
growing  unity  among  all  nations  is  the  rapid  diffusion  of 
the  English  language  all  over  the  world.  I  spent  five 
months  in  India,  traveling  from  Ceylon  on  the  south  to 
the  utmost  northern  boundary  of  the  great  empire  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  millions.  I  passed  eastward  from  Bom- 
bay to  Calcutta,  taking  time  to  observe  and  inquire  all  the 
way.     I  left  the  country  for  Burmah  with  the  full  expectation- 


224 


MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


that  English  will  be  the  language  of  business  and  culture 
and  education  and  public  affairs  in  all  India  within  fifty 
years.  In  a  hundred  years,  nine  tenths  of  the  common 
people  \s\\\  make  little  use  of  any  other  tongue.  Even  now 
I  was  told  that  five  millions  of  scholars  are  studying  English 
in  the  schools  at  any  one  time,  and  as  many  millions  more 
are  learning  it  in  the  intercourse  of  trade  and  social  life. 
In  five  years  another  class  larger  still  wdll  take  the  place  of 
those  now  studying  P^nglish  in  the  schools.  In  any  great 
city  of  India  speak  to  any  well-dressed  native  in  English 
and  the  chances  are  that  he  will  answer  you  back  in  the 
same  tongue.  I  was  riding  in  an  ox-bandy  in  the  streets 
of  Madura.  My  coolie  driver  had  forgotten  where  the 
station  master  had  told  him  to  take  me,  or  perhaps  he  did 
not  know  when  he  was  told.  I  could  not  talk  with  him  any 
more  than  I  could  with  the  ox  which  he  drove  ;  but  I  saw 
a  man  in  full  native  dress,  carrying  an  umbrella,  and  having 
the  air  of  an  educated  man.  I  asked  him  if  he  would  kindly 
tell  my  coolie  where  I  wanted  to  go,  and  I  did  not  first  ask 
him  whether  he  could  speak  English.  I  took  it  for  granted 
that  he  could,  and  he  was  apparently  pleased  to  have  me 
presume  so  much  upon  his  good  education.  He  gave  the 
directions  as  I  desired  in  the  trilling  accents  of  his  native 
Tamil ;  and  then  in  English  as  good  as  my  own  he  expressed 
his  pleasure  in  doing  me  the  favor.  My  coolie  driver  turned 
the  head  of  his  ox  the  other  way,  and  I  was  soon  at  the  door 
of  the  house  where  I  wished  to  go.  At  all  leading  hotels 
and  business  houses,  stations  on  railways,  and  ticket  offices 
of  railways  and  steamboats  ;  at  all  great  public  meetings  in 
cities,  and  in  the  transaction  of   government  business,  the 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


225 


English  language  is  spoken,  and  in  many  cases  it  is  well 
spoken  too.  I  never  heard  a  native  use  a  slang  word  or 
any  of  the  vulgarisms  which  we  are  apt  to  hear  in  our 
everyday  speech,  and  which,  very  much  to  our  shame,  are 
sometimes  admitted  into  our  schoolbooks  for  children  to 
read  and  sometimes  are  recited  and  declaimed  on  platforms 
by  professional  readers  and  students  of  oratory.  The  edu- 
cated natives  of  India  have  not  yet  learned  to  read  our 
slang  or  dialect  stories  and  poems.  They  do  not  see  the 
wit  or  the  wisdom  of  such  writings  when  they  hear  them 
read  by  others,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  never  will. 
In  the  public  schools  of  Japan  the  English  language  is 
required  to  be  taught  by  law.  One  needs  no  prophet's 
vision  to  foresee  that  English  will  be  the  ruling  language 
in  that  island  empire  fifty  years  hence.  The  brightest  and 
the  most  ambitious  of  the  young  men  in  the  open  ports  and 
commercial  cities  of  China  are  all  eager  to  learn  English  as 
a  passport  to  wealth,  position,  and  employment.  The  best 
educated  of  the  native  preachers  in  all  the  East  must  needs 
learn  to  read  English,  or  they  will  have  no  resources  to  fall 
back  upon  in  their  preparations  for  the  pulpit.  Constanti- 
nople has  long  been  a  babel  of  tongues.  One  of  our  vener- 
able missionaries,  who  is  himself  a  learned  linguist  and 
who  has  been  heard  preaching  in  twelve  different  languages 
within  the  same  week,  told  me  that  he  had  heard  twenty 
different  languages  spoken  during  a  half-hour's  walk  in  the 
streets  of  that  great  cosmopolitan  city.  And  among  them 
all  English  is  fast  coming  into  use  as  the  fittest  to  be  the 
universal  medium  of  communication  on  that  great  highway 
of  nations  between  East  and  West. 


2  26  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

A  brother  of  the  king  of  Siam,  who  is  trying  to  establish 
a  system  of  popular  education  in  his  own  country,  asked  me 
many  questions  about  the  organization  of  common  schools  in 
America.  He  invited  me  to  visit  a  large  government  school 
which  was  kept  within  the  enclosure  of  the  royal  palace 
for  the  sons  of  princes  and  nobles.  I  went,  as  he  suggested, 
and  the  first  class  I  found  were  reciting  in  English.  I  met 
a  Siamese  nobleman  at  his  house  on  the  riverside.  He 
asked  me  half  a  dozen  questions  of  the  greatest  difificulty 
about  the  books  of  Moses  and  the  oldest  records  of  the 
sacred  Scriptures.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  he 
brought  out  a  volume  of  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia  to  verify 
a  statement  which  he  had  made.  Judged  by  our  standard  of 
dress  he  was  ragged,  and  his  hands  did  not  look  as  if  they  had 
touched  clean  water  for  many  a  day ;  but  the  strong  spirit 
of  inquiry  which  is  going  round  the  world  had  touched  his 
dull  mind  and  quickened  it  into  life.  The  Gospel  by  Luke 
in  English  was  lying  on  his  table.  In  Robert  College  at 
Constantinople,  in  the  Syrian  College  at  Beirut,  and  the 
Batticotta  College  in  Ceylon,  in  all  the  high  schools  and 
colleges  in  India,  the  students  read,  write,  debate,  declaim 
in   English,  just  as  students  do  in  our  own  country. 

All  this  indicates  the  dawning  of  a  great  light  upon  the 
dark  lands  of  the  East.  We  can  hardly  understand  how 
poor  and  beggarly  are  all  the  resources  of  their  native  liter- 
ature for  the  purpose  of  a  modern  practical  education. 
Their  languages  have  no  moral  or  physical  science ;  no 
chemistry,  geography,  history,  mechanics,  engineering;  no 
anatomy,  surgery,  physiology,  or  materia  medica ;  no  inter- 
national   or   constitutional    law,    no    national    records    sifted 


LIGHT  AV   THE  EAST.  22/ 

from  fable  and  the  enormous  exaggerations  of  eastern 
chroniclers,  no  polite  literature  purified  from  the  indecent 
and  monstrous  tales  of  heathen  gods  and  mythical  heroes 
of  human  birth.  Of  course  they  have  no  theology  which 
sets  forth  the  character  and  the  works  of  one  infinite,  all- 
wise,  all-beneficent  Creator  and  Governor  of  the  universe. 
The  youth  who  grow  up  in  heathen  lands  with  nothing  but 
native  literature  to  read,  —  if  they  can  read  at  all,  —  nothing 
but  heathen  schools  to  teach  them  the  first  elements  of 
knowledge,  can  have  no  idea  of  the  world  as  it  is  or  as  it 
has  been  in  the  past.  They  can  see  nothing  about  them  but 
one  thick  cloud  of  mystery  too  dark  for  the  keenest  eye  to 
penetrate,  one  inextricable  network  of  fable  in  which  they 
strive  in  vain  to  find  meaning  or  connection,  inspiration 
to  duty  or  assistance  in  work.  As  they  grow  up  to  man- 
hood they  still  grope  their  way  along  the  journey  of  life 
blind,  and  led  by  leaders  as  blind  as  themselves,  and  they 
find  no  outlook  of  life  and  hope  at  the  end.  The  boy  o£ 
India  or  China,  well  educated  and  well  read  only  in  the 
schools  and  literature  of  his  native  land,  knows  nothing  of 
the  shape  or  size  of  the  earth,  nothing  of  the  planetary 
system  or  of  the  number  or  distance  of  the  stars  ;  nothing 
of  the  properties  of  light,  electricity,  magnetism  ;  nothing  of 
the  arts  which  build  steamships,  railways,  and  telegraphs ; 
nothing  of  the  history  of  Europe  or  America  ;  nothing  reli- 
able of  the  history  of  his  own  land.  So  far  as  he  has  any 
theory  at  all  of  the  world  and  the  things  therein,  it  is 
founded  in  fable,  it  is  overloaded  with  contradictions  and 
absurdities,  it  begins  and  ends  with  mystery  and  darkness  ; 
and  there  is  nothing  in  the  literature  of  his  native  language 


2  28  MOKX/XG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

which  can  lead  him  out  of  the  labyrinth  of  confusion  and 
contradiction  to  the  light  of  day. 

The  English  language,  with  all  its  immense  accumulations 
of  science,  literature,  history,  poetry,  biograi:)hy,  theology, 
opens  upon  such  minds  like  a  new  revelation.  Sometimes 
they  are  amazed  and  confounded  in  contemplation  of  the 
thick  darkness  in  which  they  and  their  countrymen  have 
wandered  so  long.  Sometimes  they  are  lifted  up  with  vain 
conceit,  and  they  press  on  in  the  pride  of  having  escaped 
from  their  former  ignorance  and  superstition  until  they  are 
involved  in  the  deeper  darkness  of  utter  unbelief.  They 
find  so  many  of  their  oldest  and  most  sacred  traditions 
utterly  without  foundation  that  they  hastily  conclude  that 
there  is  nothing  to  believe,  and  so  they  embark  upon  the 
dreary  and  desolate  ocean  of  skepticism.  But  wisdom  is 
justified  of  her  children.  Truth  will  make  its  way,  even 
though  some  use  the  knowledge  which  it  communicates  in 
the  endeavor  to  defeat  its  mission  and  deny  its  power. 
The  men  of  the  East  are  but  children  as  yet  in  the  mas- 
tery and  right  use  of  the  great  facts  of  science  and  philoso- 
phy. It  is  not  strange  that  some  of  them  get  bewildered 
and  lose  their  heads  when  they  find  the  door  open  and  free 
admission  into  the  treasures  of  thought  and  reasoning  and 
investigation  and  theory  with  which  the  English  language 
is  stored.  They  will  settle  down  to  rational  faith  and  prac- 
tical work  in  the  end.  They  will  acquire  habits  of  sound 
reasoning  and  patient  investigation  and  rational  faith  in 
place  of  the  old  eastern  habit  of  baseless  assumption  and 
dreary  rhapsody  and  enormous  exaggeration.  Then  the 
East  and  the  West  will  join  hands  and  move  on  with  even 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


229 


Step  towards   the  great   future   of   light    and   liberty  which 
truth  will  bring  in  for  the  enjoyment  of   all  nations. 

I  believe  that  the  English  language  is  the  chosen  and 
sacred  medium  which  divine  Providence  will  use  to  bring 
the  eastern  nations  to  right  conceptions  of  truth  and  duty, 
right  understanding  of  the  world  as  it  is  and  of  the  des- 
tiny which  awaits  man  in  the  future.  Its  progress  in  our 
day  is  a  clear  indication  of  the  coming  of  an  age  when  all 
the  nations  shall  have  one  language,  one  faith,  and  one 
law  of  duty  and  of  love  to  God  and  to  each  other.  Ingen- 
ious men  are  at  work  in  the  endeavor  to  invent  a  universal 
language  which  will  serve  as  a  medium  of  intercourse 
among  all  nations  for  all  ages.  It  is  all  labor  lost.  The 
inventors  are  behind  the  time.  The  language  is  already 
found,  not  invented  by  men,  but  the  natural  outgrowth  of 
the  providential  lead  and  teaching  by  which  English-speak- 
ing people  have  encompassed  the  globe  with  their  com- 
merce and  their  colonies,  their  inventions  and  their  litera- 
ture, their  missions  and  their  power,  their  truth  and  their 
faith.  The  exhaustless  physical  forces  of  the  earth  are  most 
completely  in  their  hands  ;  all  arts,  sciences,  and  machines 
are  at  their  command  ;  they  are  endowed  with  energy  and 
vitality  which  enable  them  to  live  in  every  climate  between 
the  poles,  and  they  must  be  foremost  in  bringing  the  great 
Christian  age  of  the  future  which  is  every  day  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer. 

Students  and  statisticians  who  have  given  especial  atten- 
tion to  the  subject  say  that  a  hundred  years  hence  there 
will  be  seven  hundred  millions  of  people  speaking  the 
English  language,  and  they  will   be   scattered  all   over  the 


230  MORXLVG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

globe;  they  will  find  homes  and  property  and  influence  in 
every  land.  And  in  that  day,  if  they  retain  their  present 
tireless  energy  and  practical  sagacity,  it  will  be  easy  for 
them  to  bring  the  remaining  millions  of  men  to  the  adop- 
tion of  their  speech  and  the  acceptance  of  the  one  uni- 
versal religion  which  has  given  English-speaking  people 
their  peculiar  power  in  the  past  and  their  immortal  hope 
for  the  future. 

It  is  a  great  blessing  to  have  the  English  language  for 
our  mother  tongue,  with  all  its  stores  of  truth  and  sacred 
teaching  for  our  inheritance.  It  is  an  immense  advantage 
to  have  our  earliest  impressions,  our  taste  and  style  and 
modes  of  speech  drawn  from  the  exhaustless  treasure  house 
of  English  undefiled,  our  beloved  old  English  Bible.  It  is 
a  blessing  for  which  we  can  never  be  too  thankful  not  to 
have  had  our  youthful  minds  stored  with  the  monstrous 
fables  and  the  polluting  tales  which  make  up  the  mass  of 
native  popular  literature  in  the  East.  And  it  becomes  us 
to  show  our  gratitude  for  our  better  speech  by  doing  our 
best  to  keep  it  pure  and  to  use  it  well.  It  is  an  awful 
shame  for  the  man  of  genius  to  use  the  peculiar  talent 
which  God  has  given  him  in  storing  our  popular  literature 
with  the  coarse,  vulgar,  profane  jests  of  the  barroom,  the 
street  broil,  the  miner's  tent,  and  the  new  settler's  cabin. 
Let  teachers  and  makers  of  schoolbooks  never  bring  before 
their  classes  for  e.xercise  in  reading  and  the  cultivation  of 
taste  any  composition  which  is  not  chaste  in  style,  pure  in 
thought,  and  fit  for  the  approval  of  the  most  delicate  and 
judicious  minds.  Let  parents  see  to  it  that  their  children 
never  defile  their  lips  with  the  coarse  jests  and  vulgarisms 


LIGHT  IN    THE   EAST.  23  I 

of  which  bad  boys  are  proud  and  which  bad  men  are  too 
willing  to  teach.  The  French  were  once  proud  to  say  that 
theirs  was  the  court  language  of  Europe.  Let  it  be  our 
'  earnest  effort  to  make  ours  fit  to  be  the  language  of  the 
court  of  heaven,  fit  to  be  the  blessed  speech  of  that  land 
where  nothing  can  enter  that  defileth  or  maketh  a  lie. 

V.  — THE    KNOWLEDGE    OF    GOD. 

The  greatest  and  the  most  distinctive  sign  of  light  dawn- 
ing in  the  East  is  the  fact  that  the  people  are  beginning  to 
know  God,  the  true,  the  only  living  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  God  hath  sent.  They  are  just  waking  up  to  the 
great  discovery  that  there  is  one  true  and  undefiled  reli- 
gion, equally  fitted  for  all  people,  all  lands,  all  time.  It  was 
the  old  heathen  idea  that  every  people  might  have  a  religion 
of  their  own,  Hinduism  for  the  Hindus,  Buddhism  for  the 
Buddhists,  Mohammedanism  for  the  Mohammedans,  and 
Christianity  for  the  Christians.  I  asked  an  old  Buddhist 
priest  in  the  incomparable  pagoda  at  Mandalay  if  he  thought 
his  religion  true.  He  said,  "Yes."  Did  he  think  it  good.^ 
"Yes."  I  said,  I  am  a  traveler  in  search  of  good  things 
and  true  to  carry  home  to  my  country.  Would  he  advise 
me  to  go  back  to  America  and  tell  my  people  that  I  had 
found  a  good  and  true  religion  in  Burmah,  and  that  they 
would  do  well  to  believe  and  adopt  it  as  their  own  ^  "  Oh, 
no,"  he  said  :  he  would  not  advise  anything  like  that.  He 
would  not  have  the  worshipers  of  Jesus  change  nor  the 
worshipers  of  Gautama.  Let  each  observe  the  religion  into 
which  he  has  been  born.  I  met  a  company  of  Hindus  at 
a  sacred  shrine  near    Batalagundu,    in   Southern    India.      I 


232  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

pointed  to  a  rude  stone  image  and  asked  if  it  were  a  god. 
They  said,  "Yes."  Did  they  worship  it?  "Yes."  What! 
worship  that  dead  stone  which  was  once  in  the  field  like  other 
stones  and  now  has  been  only  carved  a  little  and  shaped  and 
painted  with  vermilion  on  the  head  by  the  hands  of  a  man  .' 
do  you  worship  that  >  "  Well,  not  exactly  that ;  but  the 
image  helps  us  to  worship  the  god  that  is  in  the  stone." 
"Would  you  advise  me  to  take  an  idol  like  that  to  America 
and  tell  my  people  that  it  will  help  them  to  become  great 
and  wise  and  happy  if  they  will  learn  to  worship  the  god 
in  the  stone  .^ "  "Oh,  no;  let  the  Christians  be  Christians 
and  the  Hindus,  Hindus."  They  thought  it  kind  and  cour- 
teous so  to  speak.  But  never  in  India  or  Burmah,  Siam  or 
China,  could  I  get  a  heathen  to  advise  me  to  take  his  reli- 
gion home  with  me  and  teach  it  to  the  people  of  America. 
They  would  even  admit  that  it  would  be  a  calamity  to  the 
world  if  Christians  should  abandon  Christianity  and  adopt 
any  form  of  heathenism  that  exists  or  ever  has  existed  in 
all  time. 

I  spoke  to  a  heathen  audience  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
men  at  Nagercoil,  in  the  principality  of  the  maharajah  of 
Travancore.  They  made  no  disguise  of  their  faith.  They 
wore  the  marks  of  devotion  to  their  gods  on  their  foreheads, 
arms,  and  breasts.  I  stated  the  characteristics  of  a  religion 
which  would  be  equally  good  for  all  people,  all  lands,  all 
time.  I  did  not  quote  the  Bible,  I  did  not  name  Chris- 
tianity. The  meeting  had  been  organized  after  our  manner 
by  the  choice  of  a  chairman,  and  many  leading  persons  of 
the  city  occupied  the  platform.  A  heathen  judge  presided, 
with  the  sacred  ashes  on  his  forehead  as  a  siirn  of  his  devo- 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


233 


tion  to  the  f^od  Siva.  At  the  close  of  the  lecture  he  said  to 
me  that  he  knew  I  meant  Christianity  all  the  time,  for  that 
was  the  only  religion  in  the  world  to  which  my  definitions 
would  apply,  and  that  in  fact  was  the  only  universal  religion. 
I  said,  "  Would  you  make  that  statement  to  this  assembly  of 
your  countrymen  .^  "  "Oh,  no,"  he  said  ;  "I  could  not.  If  I 
did,  I  should  lose  everything  I  have  in  the  world.  I  should 
become  an  outcast.  My  office  and  my  income  would  be 
taken  from  me,  my  wife  and  my  children,  my  dearest  friends 
and  neighbors  would  desert  and  despise  me,  and  the  lowest 
of  the  people  would  think  me  only  worthy  to  be  scorned  and 
spit  upon."  "But  is  not  the  true  religion,  the  religion  which 
makes  men  children  of  God  and  heirs  of  immortality,  worth 
suffering  for.^  The  best  things  we  have  in  America  have 
cost  somebody  a  great  deal,  but  we  think  them  worth  all  the 
cost."  "Ah,  that  is  the  way  you  Christians  talk.  Perhaps 
my  great-grandchildren  will  say  as  much.     I  cannot." 

Nevertheless  many  thousands,  who  are  still  heathen  like 
that  courteous  and  kindly  judge,  are  coming  slowly  to  the 
conviction  that  there  is  one  and  only  one  true  religion  ;  not 
one  for  the  East  and  another  for  the  West,  not  one  for  the 
Hindus  and  another  for  the  English  and  the  Americans,  but 
one  for  all  people  that  dwell  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth ;  and 
that  religion  is  Christianity.  They  see,  as  they  never  saw  till 
Christian  teachers  came  with  the  Bible  in  their  hands,  that 
there  must  be  one  infinite,  almighty,  and  everlasting  God, 
and  the  test  of  the  true  and  universal  religion  must  be  that 
it  sets  God  first,  highest,  and  best  in  all  things,  and  it 
brings  man  —  every  man,  however  high  or  lowly  be  his  condi- 
tion—  into  direct,  living,  personal  connection  with  that  sole, 


234  A/OA'.VLVG  LIGHT  IN  MAXY  LANDS. 

infinite,  eternal  God.  That  is  the  greatest  thought  that 
has  yet  found  its  way  into  the  eastern  mind  —  every  man 
responsible  personally  and  for  everything  to  God,  every 
man  cared  for  kindly  and  tenderly  by  the  one  almighty 
Father,  every  man  lifted  up  with  the  hope  of  glory  and  life 
everlasting.  That  one  thought  sweeps  away  at  once  all  the 
idolatries,  mythologies,  fables  of  the  sacred  books,  tradi- 
tions, and  sacrifices  of  the  great  eastern  world.  When  the 
heathen  have  given  up  all  that,  they  must  become  utter 
unbelievers  or  they  must  become  Christians.  They  must 
take  it  for  granted  that  the  one  true  religion,  being  a  rev- 
elation from  the  one  true  and  eternal  God,  must  be  consist- 
ent with  all  the  laws,  forces,  and  phenomena  of  the  mate- 
rial world,  for  God  made  the  world  and  all  things  therein. 
If  he  speaks  to  man  in  the  revelation  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures,  that  written  word  must  agree  with  all  the  rev- 
elations of  God  in  the  world  which  he  has  created  and 
which  he  upholds  and  governs  every  moment.  And  besides, 
the  revelation  of  God  must  answer  the  deepest  necessities 
of  the  human  soul,  it  must  set  before  every  man  the  noblest 
and  the  truest  life,  it  must  hold  out  in  hope  and  bring  within 
the  reach  of  all  the  most  glorious  and  everlasting  destiny. 
Anything  less  than  that  would  not  be  a  fit  message  from 
the  almighty  Father  to  his  beloved  and  yet  wandering  child. 
Neither  the  Brahmin  nor  the  Buddhist  nor  the  Confucian- 
ist  ever  finds  anything  like  that  in  his  sacred  books.  They 
find  many  things  absurd,  irrational,  impossible,  but  one 
infinite,  eternal  Mind,  whose  will  is  the  one  infinite  force 
of  the  universe,  they  never  find.  So  when  the  one  great 
idea  of  the  God  of  the  Bible  dawns  upon  them  it  is  as  if  a 


LIGHT  IN   THE  EAST. 


235 


new  sun  of  life  and  truth  and  love  had  been  shot  into 
the  chaos  of  their  old  mythologies  and  contradictions.  The 
heathen  are  very  slow  to  take  in  the  one  first  great  truth  of 
the  Christian  Scriptures  ;  but  when  they  do  grasp  it  they 
hold  it  fast.  They  know  little  about  the  doubts  and  per- 
plexities which  trouble  even  Christians  in  our  country. 
Having  once  received  the  Bible  as  God's  word  and  Christ 
as  a  divine  Saviour,  they  rest  in  that  faith  with  a  peace  and 
a  firmness  that  delight  and  surprise  the  Christian  teachers 
who  have  taught  them  the  way  of  hope  and  salvation.  So 
light  is  dawning  slowly  upon  the  great  darkness  of  the 
ancient  East,  and  the  full  day  is  as  sure  to  come  as  God  is 
to  keep  his  promise  to  them  that  trust  his  word  and  labor 
for  the  coming  of  his  kingdom  in  all  the  world. 


XVI. 

VIEWS    FROM    CAR    WINDOWS. 

IT  is  not  easy  to  give  specific  directions  beforehand  to 
one  who  is  about  starting  on  a  long  journey  in  the 
East  and  who  wishes  to  bring  home  a  fair  impression  of 
the  aspects  of  the  country  and  the  condition  of  the  people. 
Probably  the  best  way  for  him  to  get  well  informed  will  be 
to  look  carefully  at  everything  seen,  listen  closely  to  every- 
thing said,  ask  countless  questions,  but  give  few  opinions 
of  his  own,  go  through  the  land  in  its  utmost  extent  and 
see  as  much  as  possible  of  the  outdoor  life  of  the  people, 
make  the  acquaintance  of  foreigners  who  have  lived  longest 
in  the  country  and  who  are  there  for  every  diversity  of  pur- 
pose, get  them  to  tell  everything  they  know  and  to  express 
every  opinion  which  they  entertain,  and  then  form  theories 
and  draw  conclusions  after  getting  home.  For  one  experi- 
ment in  that  line  of  observation  let  me  suppose  myself  to  be 
passing  leisurely  through  the  country  by  rail,  seeing  every- 
thing I  can  from  the  car  windows,  making  a  little  stop  here 
and  there  in  towns  and  villages  in  order  to  get  closer  to  the 
people  and  make  a  few  guesses  at  their  home  life  and 
thought.  I  will  make  no  attempt  at  critical  inquiry,  and 
I  will  spend  few  words  in  moralizing  upon  things  seen  by 
myself  or  things  said  by  others.  So  far  as  I  can  I  will  give 
the  reader  the  use  of  my  eyes  in  looking  at  things  seen  by 

.  236 


VIEWS   FROM  CAR    WINDOWS.  237 

the  way,  and  the  experience  of  my  sensations  in  traveling 
a  hundred  miles  by  rail  in  a  tropical  country. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  start  out  from  Madura,  a  city 
of  seventy-five  thousand  inhabitants  in  Southern  India,  and 
we  design  to  go  a  hundred  miles  and  more  to  take  a  look 
at  Tinnevelly,  Trevandrum,  and  Tuticorin,  where  the  rail- 
way system  of  India  begins  and  runs  northward  to  Pesha- 
war, at  the  opening  of  the  Khyber  Pass,  some  three  thou- 
sand miles  from  the  starting  point.  We  load  ourselves  and 
light  baggage  into  an  ox-bandy  for  transportation  to  the 
station.  The  carriage  is  a  small  cart  with  a  cover  of  mat- 
ting and  the  body  resting  on  the  axle  without  springs.  It 
has  no  seats  inside  or  out  for  passengers,  it  is  not  high 
enough  to  stand  up  in,  and  it  has  neither  door  nor  window 
to  look  out  of.  We  make  ourselves  as  comfortable  as  we 
can  on  the  board  bottom  without  asking  for  straw  or  unroll- 
ing our  quilts  for  bedding,  for  the  distance  is  but  a  mile  to 
the  station  and  the  bed  of  the  street  is  smooth,  without 
pavement  or  curbstone.  The  coolie  driver  mounts  the 
shafts  and  gives  a  twist  to  the  tail  of  the  ox  as  a  sign  for 
starting.  The  animal  knows  very  well  what  that  means, 
for  he  has  felt  it  many  times  before,  and  he  knows  better 
than  to  wait  for  whip  or  spur.  He  starts  off  at  a  rolling, 
lubberly  trot,  and  the  coolie  calls  out  to  the  people  in  the 
crowded  street  to  take  care  of  themselves  lest  they  should 
be  run  down  by  the  rapid  motion  of  his  lumbering  team. 
But  the  people  mind  little  what  he  says,  for  they  know  well 
that  there  is  not  the  least  danger  that  anybody  will  be  run 
over  by  fast  driving  in  a  Hindu  city. 

The  broad  street  is  full  of  people  —  coolies  bearing  bur- 


238  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

dens  and  moving  swiftly  along  with  bare  feet  and  panting 
breath  ;  women,  with  arms,  ears,  nose,  ankles,  and  feet  cov- 
ered with  jewelry,  gathering  the  droppings  of  the  cattle 
to  carry  home  to  dry  for  fuel ;  children  entirely  naked ; 
women  with  a  child  astride  upon  the  shoulder  or  hip;  oxen 
with  painted  horns ;  buffaloes  plastered  with  mud ;  idlers 
sitting  in  groups  on  the  ground  ;  shopmen  drawing  strange 
figures  with  chalk  on  the  mud  walls  or  the  smooth  bed  of 
the  street  at  their  doors  ;  here  and  there  a  native  gentleman 
carrying  a  white  umbrella,  wearing  a  white  turban  of  many 
folds  upon  his  head,  clothed  with  a  white  tunic  that  comes 
down  halfway  between  the  knee  and  the  black  and  bare 
feet.  He  carries  palm  slips  prepared  for  writing  in  his 
hand  and  a  writing  stylus  in  his  girdle.  He  has  the  air  of 
office  and  authority,  and  the  naked  urchins  lying  in  the  dust 
of  the  street  get  up  and  give  way  for  him  to  pass.  The 
elephants  of  the  great  temple  have  been  out  for  a  morning 
walk  and  they  pass  us  with  their  long,  lumbering  step  on 
the  way  home.  They  are  followed  by  half  a  dozen  sanny- 
asis,  or  fakirs,  covered  with  filth  and  displaying  their  inde- 
cent and  disgusting  appearance  in  the  street  as  an  act  of 
morning  devotion.  Grain  lies  here  and  there  in  thin  beds 
upon  the  ground  to  dry,  and  wild  birds  come  down  to  help 
themselves  with  nobody  to  drive  them  away.  Rooks  and 
crows  are  looking  about  the  shops  for  a  breakfast,  and  a 
stray  ox  makes  his  way  through  the  crowd  as  if  he  were 
his  own  master. 

These  glimpses  at  eastern  life  in  the  street  may  be  caught 
from  the  opening  of  the  bandy  behind,  and  much  more 
might  be  seen  of   people  and  of   manners  if   the  covering 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR    WINDOWS. 


239 


were  off.  But  we  reach  the  station  in  due  time ;  I  pay  the 
coolie  two  annas  (about  six  cents),  the  usual  fare  for  the 
ride,  and  he  takes  it  with  the  same  look  of  oppressed  and 
injured  innocence  which  the  Hindus  wear  whether  treated 
harshly  or  kindly. 

The  station  master,  as  everywhere  else  in  India,  speaks 
English,  and  I  ask  him  any  questions  I  please  with  the 
certainty  of  receiving  a  prompt  and  intelligent  answer.  I 
pay  three  rupees  and  eight  annas,  about  a  dollar  and  sixteen 
cents,  for  a  ticket  to  Tinnevelly,  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
miles.  It  is  second  class,  and  yet  the  price  seems  low.  I 
enter  the  car  assigned  me  by  the  station  master  when  the 
train  arrives,  and  when  I  look  about  me  the  fare  seems  high. 
There  is  a  closet,  and  cloth-covered  seats  long  enough  to 
lie  down  upon  at  full  length,  and  hanging  shelves  to  stow 
away  bundles  and  baggage,  and  the  whole  compartment  is 
given  up  to  two  persons  all  the  way.  And  again  I  say  we 
have  got  all  we  paid  for,  and  the  man  who  complains  of  the 
cost  must  be  hard  to  please  in  India  or  anywhere  else.  We 
start  off,  and  after  we  have  felt  the  monotonous  rumble  of 
the  carriages  over  the  rough  road  for  three  hours,  and  have 
run  less  than  forty  miles  and  have  stopped  long  enough  at 
each  station  to  drop  off  cars  and  make  up  a  new  train,  we 
review  our  estimate  of  prices  and  accommodations,  and  we 
say  it  is  cheap  traveling  for  the  coolie,  who  rides  third  class 
for  a  third  of  a  cent  a  mile,  and  it  is  high  fare  for  the 
English  official  who  takes  the  first  class  and  pays  twice  as 
much  as  we  do  in  the  second  and  goes  no  faster  and  gets  no 
better  accommodations  than  we,  except  that  his  cushions  are 
a  trifle  softer  and  he  is  more  likely  to  have  the  whole  of  his 
car  to  himself. 


240  MORXIA'G   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Views  from  the  car  windows,  as  we  move  on  at  a  leisurely 
rate,  give  a  fair  impression  of  the  general  character  of  the 
country  and  the  occupations  of  the  people  all  over  India. 
Cactus  hedges,  with  their  sharp-pointed  and  ugly-looking 
leaves,  saw-toothed  and  spear-shaped,  line  the  road  on  each 
side  all  the  way.  The  plant  sometimes  shoots  up  a  tall 
central  stalk  and  puts  forth  blossoms  that  have  as  little 
beauty  as  the  leaves.  When  full-grown  it  makes  a  fence 
which  cattle  will  not  attempt  to  jump  over  or  break  through. 
And  indeed  a  regiment  of  soldiers  would  need  to  send 
forward  a  company  of  sappers  and  miners  with  axe  and 
spade  to  clear  the  way  before  they  could  safely  attempt  to 
pass.  I  have  ridden  along  the  crooked  and  narrow  paths  of 
Palestine  between  rows  of  these  cactus  hedges,  and  I  needed 
to  keep  careful  watch  lest  the  sharp  spines  should  pierce 
through  my  boots  or  give  an  unnecessary  spur  to  my  frisky 
horse.  Where  the  soil  is  rich  and  the  hedge  grows  luxuri- 
antly, it  covers  a  broad  space,  and  demands  more  every  year 
till  at  last  the  railway  companies  are  obliged  to  root  it  up 
and  put  wire  in  its  place. 

Paddy  fields  stretch  away  long  distances  to  the  right  and 
left  of  the  road,  greatly  relieving  the  bare  and  houseless 
aspect  of  the  country.  Here  and  there  men  and  women  are 
wading  or  creeping  half  knee-deep  in  mud  and  water  between 
the  rows  of  rice,  pulling  up  the  weeds.  When  the  grain  is 
pretty  well  grown  the  laborers  crouch  so  low  at  their  work 
that  they  cannot  be  seen,  except  when  one  is  looking  in  the 
direction  of  the  rows.  Low,  narrow,  crooked  ridges,  made 
like  dams  to  stop  the  flow  of  water,  divide  the  fields  one 
from    another,   and    they  serve   as    roads    or   paths    for   the 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR    WINDOWS.  24 1 

people  who  have  occasion  to  travel  across  the  country.  An 
English  engineer  tells  me  that  he  has  traveled  a  great 
many  miles  on  these  narrow,  uneven  footways  between  the 
fields  when  making  his  surveys  of  the  country.  A  Chinese 
missionary  told  me  that  in  his  tours  about  the  province  of 
Shantung  he  had  completed  forty  miles  a  day  traveling  in 
a  wheelbarrow  on  one  of  these  ridges  with  a  horse  before 
to  pull  and  a  coolie  behind  to  keep  the  one  wheel  in  place 
on  the  narrow  track.  The  rice  plants  look  like  green  grass 
or  half-grown  wheat,  some  of  it  pale  yellow  as  if  growing 
on  thin  soil ;  other  plats  are  dark  green  and  very  luxuriant. 
The  ground  is  prepared  for  sowing  rice  by  covering  it 
with  water,  and  then  men  and  buffaloes  go  in  with  bare 
feet  and  rude  plows  or  harrows  and  stir  up  the  soil  until  it 
is  made  into  thick  mud,  sticky  as  putty  and  black  as  the 
beasts  and  men  that  work  it  into  a  suitable  state  for  the 
seed  to  sprout  and  send  up  its  slender  blade  of  green  into 
the  hot  air.  The  rice  is  sown  first  in  a  small  bed  and  very 
thickly.  When  it  is  eight  or  ten  inches  high  it  is  pulled 
up  by  the  roots,  tied  in  small  bundles,  and  carried  away  to 
be  set  in  rows  across  the  larger  fields.  When  first  trans- 
planted it  looks  very  thin  and  not  likely  to  grow.  But  con- 
tinual supplies  of  water  and  the  hot  sunshine  bring  it  for- 
ward rapidly,  and  soon  it  covers  the  whole  field  with  the 
dark  green  which  goes  before  the  russet  brown  of  the  har- 
vest. In  all  Southern  India  and  the  flat  lands  along  the 
great  rivers  of  China  and  the  picturesque  hollows  among 
the  hills  in  Japan,  the  rice  grounds  are  always  pretty  to 
look  at  ;  but  I  should  not  want  one  of  its  broad  fields  of 
mud  and  water  to  look  out  upon  from    my  door.      I   should 


242  MOHNLVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

expect  that  chills  and  fever  would  be  the  price  to  be  paid 
for  the  enjoyment  of  the  view.  The  rice  grounds  in  Japan 
have  a  very  tasteful  and  garden-like  appearance,  and  they 
give  diversity  and  beauty  to  the  landscapes  of  hill  and 
valley  with  which  the  island  empire  abounds. 

When  the  soil  in  southern  India  becomes  dry  and  sandy, 
as  it  often  does,  cotton  takes  the  place  of  rice ;  but  the 
crop,  as  seen  from  the  car  windows,  looks  like  a  pasture  of 
low  brushwood  growing  wild.  The  small  white  floss  just 
breaking  out  of  the  dry  pod  would  make  a  stranger  think 
that  a  flock  of  sheep  had  been  running  among  the  bushes 
and  that  the  sharp  and  hooked  ends  of  the  twigs  had 
caught  little  wisps  of  their  wool.  The  amount  of  cotton  is 
so  small  that  laborers  must  work  very  cheaply  to  make  it 
pay  for  the  picking,  to  say  nothing  of  the  cost  of  cultivation. 

Broad  level  carriage  roads  are  made  all  through  the  more 
thickly  settled  portions  of  India.  They  are  all  the  result  of 
English  rule.  Under  the  dominion  of  the  native  princes  a 
royal  road  would  sometimes  be  made  for  a  king  or  a  con- 
queror to  pass,  but  nothing  was  done  to  supply  convenient 
and  serviceable  highways  for  the  people.  The  great  roads 
can  be  seen  from  the  car  windows,  stretching  away  for  long 
distances  across  the  plains  and  sometimes  climbing  the  hills 
to  the  cool  retreats  where  the  officials  of  government  find  a 
summer  home.  They  are  lined  on  both  sides  with  rows  of 
great  wide-spreading  banyan,  acacia,  and  tamarind  trees,  and 
they  make  a  very  pleasant  break  in  the  landscape,  which 
would  be  bare  and  dreary  without  them.  The  main  trunk  of 
the  banyan  is  sometimes  so  large  as  to  take  three  men  with 
outstretched  arms  to  measure  its  girth.     The  main  branches 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR    WINDOWS.  243 

drop  down  fibers  or  rootlets  no  bigger  than  a  fish  line,  and 
they  grow  twenty  or  thirty  feet  through  the  air  in  search  of 
the  ground.  When  at  last  they  reach  the  earth  they  send 
out  roots,  and  the  small  cord  grows  into  a  trunk,  and  the 
branch  from  which  it  springs  draws  new  support  and  nour- 
ishment from  the  stem,  and  sometimes  it  becomes  bigger 
and  stronger  than  the  original  tree  from  which  it  sprang. 
Along  the  highways  coolies  are  required  to  keep  the  de- 
scending lines  cut  off  several  feet  before  they  reach  the 
ground,  lest  the  tree  should  become  so  large  as  to  cover  the 
whole  breadth  of  the  road  and  cut  off  all  travel.  Large 
bundles  of  the  filaments,  that  have  been  thus  cut  off  and 
intercepted  in  their  growth,  may  be  seen  hanging  in  the 
air  under  the  parent  tree  and  waiting  for  a  chance  to  fasten 
themselves  in  the  earth.  One  tree  left  to  itself  would  make 
a  forest  by  the  continued  extension  of  its  branches.  One 
growing  in  the  Botanical  Garden  at  Calcutta  is  already  large 
enough  to  shelter  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men,  and  it  is 
still  shooting  out  stems  and  branches  in  every  direction. 

The  branches  of  the  broad  banyan  are  the  favorite  haunt 
of  snakes  and  monkeys,  and  the  two  tribes  of  tenants  are 
constantly  contending  for  the  right  of  occupancy.  The 
snakes  are  still  and  sleepy  ;  the  monkeys  chatter  and  caper 
from  branch  to  branch  as  if  they  never  slept,  and  the  hap- 
piest time  for  them  is  when  they  can  run  the  most  freely 
and  make  the  most  noise.  The  only  time  when  they  agree 
by  common  consent  to  be  still  is  when  they  see  a  cobra 
coiled  around  a  branch  and  taking  a  noonday  nap.  They 
enter  into  council  as  to  what  shall  be  done,  talking  more 
with  looks  and  gestures  than  with  tongues.     At  the  conclu- 


244  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

sion  one  of  the  bravest  and  strongest  is  delegated  to  act  for 
the  rest.  Proceeding  upon  his  perilous  commission  the 
appointed  monkey  steals  up  silently  till  he  comes  within 
grasping  distance,  then  he  seizes  the  deadly  foe  by  the 
throat,  drags  him  down  to  the  earth,  and  grinds  his  head 
upon  a  stone  till  his  teeth  and  jaws  are  all  worn  away  and 
the  fangs  destroyed.  Then  the  triumphant  monkey  throws 
the  conquered  and  toothless  cobra  to  be  made  sport  of  by 
the  children  of  the  tribe,  while  the  older  members  of  the 
council  set  up  a  chorus  of  joy  and  laughter. 

The  native  people  suffer  all  manner  of  tricks  and  depre- 
dations from  the  mischievous  monkeys  rather  than  molest 
their  tormentors  or  even  drive  them  away  from  their  gar- 
dens or  markets.  It  would  be  thought  a  great  crime  to  put 
one  of  them  to  death ;  and  I  never  met  with  but  one  for- 
eigner even  who  would  confess  that  he  had  killed  one  of 
the  four-handed  climbers  of  the  houses  and  the  trees  ;  and 
he  said  that  the  dying  creature  set  up  such  a  piteous  and 
human  wail  after  receiving  the  death  shot  that  he  felt  as  if 
he  had  committed  murder,  and  he  resolved  never  to  fire 
upon  the  cunning  and  tricky  tribe  again.  As  you  drive 
along  the  highways  under  the  overarching  trees,  the  mon- 
keys run  across  from  side  to  side  overhead  on  the  green 
branches,  they  stare  down  upon  you,  and  chatter  as  if  laugh- 
ing at  your  funny  appearance  and  wondering  where  such  a 
queer-looking  monkey  as  yourself  could  have  come  from. 
They  imitate  your  motions  and  make  strange  grimaces  to 
each  other,  and  then  burst  out  in  a  loud  chorus  of  jabbering 
voices  as  if  they  never  saw  such  a  ridiculous  sight  before. 
If  you  are  so  much  of  a  philosopher  as  to   see  your  great 


FIEIVS  FROM   CAR   IVIXDOIVS.  245 

ancestors  in  the  long-tailed  race  it  may  take  a  little  of 
the  conceit  out  of  your  wisdom  to  see  that  these  funny 
creatures  are  so  much  like  yourself  and  yet  are  brutes. 
Nevertheless  the  long  rides  over  the  level  roads  and  under 
the  archways  of  the  banyans  would  be  more  wearisome  and 
lonely  if  it  were  not  for  the  queer  and  cunning  occupants 
of  the  treetops  who  look  down  and  laugh  at  you  as  you 
go  by. 

The  mango,  with  its  rounded  and  thick-leaved  top,  is  a 
conspicuous  figure  in  every  landscape  of  Southern  India. 
When  the  trees  stand  at  considerable  distance  from  each 
other  in  their  natural  growth  they  have  the  appearance  of 
a  park  or  pleasure  ground,  realizing  the  oriental  idea  of  a 
paradise.  They  seem  to  have  been  purposely  set  at  diverse 
and  irregular  intervals  to  avoid  the  uniformity  of  straight 
lines  or  the  artificial  air  of  cornfields  and  peach  orchards 
planted  in  rows  for  the  convenience  of  cultivation.  The 
fruit  of  the  mango  tree  is  about  three  inches  long,  yellow, 
oval,  and  flattened  down  at  the  sides.  Inside  is  a  large 
stone  shaped  like  the  stone  of  a  prune  but  much  larger. 
The  best  method  of  eating  the  mango  is  as  diverse  and  as 
much  disputed  as  the  method  of  eating  an  orange  in  Florida. 
The  most  delicate  and  aesthetic  way  is  to  remove  a  slip  from 
each  flattened  side  with  a  sharp  knife,  as  deep  as  the  stone 
and  as  long  as  the  fruit,  and  then  scrape  the  yellow  and 
juicy  pulp  from  the  cutting  with  a  spoon.  In  that  way  you 
get  no  stain  upon  your  face  or  fingers  and  you  do  not 
endanger  the  white  linen  of  the  friend  who  sits  nearest 
to  you  at  table.  The  more  luxurious  method  is  to  remove 
the  yellow  jacket  of  the  fruit  with  a  sharp  knife,    leaving 


246  AfORX/.VG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

only  a  small  ring  at  each  end  for  a  handle,  and  then  with 
head  bent  low  over  the  plate  and  both  hands  grasping  the 
mango,  proceed  to  business  as  men  eat  boiled  corn  from  the 
cob  in  New  England  homes.  When  the  rhapsody  of  appe- 
tite is  over  the  face  of  the  eater  is  not  presentable  to  the 
company,  and  he  needs  a  liberal  use  of  the  finger  bowl 
before  proceeding  to  the  next  course  or  shaking  hands  with 
a  new  guest.  When  a  modest  man  with  a  full  beard  adopts 
this  style,  he  prefers  to  eat  his  mangoes  alone. 

The  mangosteen  mingles  with  the  palm  and  the  mango 
in  clothing  the  nakedness  of  the  landscape  through  which 
the  railroads  run,  and  it  is  sometimes  called  the  king  fruit 
of  all  the  East.  I  should  be  disposed  to  dispute  its  title  to 
the  crown,  and  yet  I  think  it  worthy  of  high  honor  among 
the  trees.  The  fruit  is  about  the  size  and  shape  of  a 
medium  Baldwin  apple.  It  is  dark  brown  outside  and  it 
has  a  rind  a  third  of  an  inch  in  thickness.  The  covering 
has  a  dark  yellow,  very  astringent  juice,  which  puckers  the 
lip  that  touches  it  and  blackens  the  knife  which  is  used  in 
cutting  it.  It  is  said  to  be  good  as  a  mordant  in  causing 
colors  to  set,  and  it  has  a  great  amount  of  tannin  matter. 
It  has  a  sharp,  stinging,  bitter  taste.  Inside  of  the  brown 
covering,  packed  in  the  neatest  form,  are  five  or  six  lobes 
of  white,  clean,  exceedingly  pleasant  fruit,  so  juicy  and 
limpid,  so  nicely  flavored  and  finely  packed  that  one  won- 
ders how  such  a  shiny  and  precious  deposit  of  nectar  could 
find  its  way  through  such  a  bitter  and  astringent  covering. 
The  same  root  and  tree  and  stem,  the  same  sun  and  rain 
and  soil  minister  nourishment  to  the  bitter  bark  and  the 
globe  of  sweetness  packed  inside.     What  mysterious  chem- 


VJEIVS  FROM   CAR   WINDOWS. 


247 


istry  can  make  the  change  in  the  common  elements  of  earth 
and  water  and  air  as  they  pass  through  the  living  trunk  and 
stem  of  the  tree  it  is  beyond  our  science  to  discover. 

So  sometimes,  once  in  a  thousand  or  a  million  times,  we 
find  a  man  with  all  manner  of  roughness  and  bitterness  of 
manners  and  hardness  of  speech  ;  but  when  we  make  our 
way  into  the  inner  sanctuary  of  his  heart  we  find  sweetness 
of  temper,  kindliness  of  disposition,  good  feeling  towards 
everybody.  But  we  do  not  think  such  a  character  one  to 
be  commended  to  the  young  nor  to  be  admired  in  those  who 
have  it.  Men  are  not  apt  to  be  better  than  they  look  to 
be.  If  the  gentle  angel  of  charity  and  peace  keeps  the 
house  of  the  heart,  the  cheery  voice  of  his  singing  will  be 
heard  by  the  passer-by,  and  the  light  of  hope  which  keeps 
burning  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  soul  will  shine  out  through 
the  windows  of  the  eye  and  the  features  of  the  face  to  show 
wanderers  the  way  of  peace  and  the  path  home.  The  man- 
gosteen  is  beautiful  to  look  upon  and  pleasant  to  the  taste, 
but  it  is  not  the  best  model  for  the  makeup  of  character  in 
the  everyday  man.  The  mysterious  chemistry  which  stores 
up  sweetness  in  the  heart  of  the  brown  and  bitter  shell 
cannot  be  relied  upon  to  enrich  in  the  same  silent  manner 
the  sanctuary  of  the  soul  with  the  more  precious  jewels  of 
gentleness  and  peace.  In  the  case  of  the  man,  the  outer 
casket  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  treasure  which  it 
keeps. 

Another  look  through  the  car  windows  discovers  a  new 
shade  upon  the  landscape.  Vast  fields  of  the  castor-oil 
bean  plant,  with  its  broad  and  rounded  leaves,  relieve  the 
eye  when  it    has    become  wearied   for   many   miles    by  the 


248  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

sameness  of  rice  and  cotton  and  cactus  hedge.  It  would 
seem  as  if  all  the  doctors  and  druggists  in  the  world  might 
be  supplied  with  castor  oil  from  the  fields  which  are  given 
to  the  cultivation  of  the  plant  in  Southern  India  alone.  The 
plant  grows  twenty  or  thirty  feet  high,  puts  on  a  purple  tint 
towards  the  top,  and  surrounds  itself  with  a  coronal  of 
bluish-green  leaves,  which  are  broad  enough  to  shield  the 
head  of  the  coolie  from  the  sun.  It  does  not  improve  our 
appetite  for  the  cakes  and  patties,  which  are  brought  out 
for  sale  at  every  station,  when  we  are  told  that  castor  oil 
is  an  important  article  among  the  supplies  for  a  native 
kitchen.  Tall  grass  or  reeds,  with  fine,  flossy  plumes,  offset 
the  broad  leaves  of  the  oil  plant,  and  both  are  relieved  by  a 
kind  of  grain  which  puts  forth  a  great  abundance  of  yellow 
blossoms  and  reminds  one  who  has  traveled  in  the  Holy 
Land  of  the  mustard  which  grows  on  the  plains  of  Akka 
and  Gennesaret  high  as  the  head  of  the  horseman  and 
giving  shelter  and  nesting  places  to  millions  of  small  birds 
among  its  branches. 

Most  of  the  country  which  we  see  from  the  car  windows, 
as  we  pass  along  the  chief  lines  of  railway,  is  under  culti- 
vation, and  yet  it  surprises  the  traveler  from  America  to  see 
how  large  a  portion  of  the  land  in  this  thickly-settled  coun- 
try of  India  produces  nothing  for  the  support  of  man  or 
beast.  English  statistics  say  that  only  half  of  the  whole 
country  is  under  cultivation.  And  then  the  half  which  is 
cultivated  might  be  made  to  produce  five  times  as  much  as 
is  now  raised  if  it  were  in  the  hands  of  an  intelligent  and 
energetic  people.  Native  plows  only  scratch  the  surface  two 
or  three  inches  deep ;  there  is  little  or  no  effort  to  return  to 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR   IVINDOPVS.  249 

the  soil  what  has  been  taken  from  it  by  the  crop ;  water  and 
the  sun  are  the  only  fertilizers,  and  famine  follows  inevi- 
tably when  the  heat  is  excessive  and  the  rain  fails  at  the 
same  time.  It  takes  four  laborers  in  India  to  do  the  work 
which  is  easily  done  by  one  in  America ;  the  wages  paid  the 
four  is  less  than  half  we  pay  to  one,  so  that  the  means  of 
living  are  eight  times  in  favor  of  the  American.  In  India 
the  poor  have  nothing  laid  up  in  store  against  the  day  of 
want,  and  the  rich  are  little  inclined  to  give  of  their  abun- 
dance to  relieve  the  starving.  The  high-caste  man  counts  it 
no  part  of  his  religion  and  he  feels  no  prompting  of  his 
conscience  to  comfort  the  sorrow  or  to  relieve  the  suffer- 
ing of  the  low-caste  man,  whose  fate  is  written  on  his  fore- 
head and  who  must  live  and  die  by  the  changeless  law  of  his 
being.  Under  English  rule  great  improvements  have  been 
made  in  agriculture  ;  the  products  of  the  field,  poor  as  they 
are  now,  are  much  greater  than  they  were  in  the  days  of  the 
great  moguls  ;  in  time  of  drought  and  famine  relief  is  pro- 
vided for  many  thousands  whom  princes  and  Brahmins  would 
have  left  to  starve. 

All  the  broad  highways  in  the  neighborhood  of  cities  and 
between  villages  are  lined  with  natives  walking  and  carry- 
ing loads  on  their  heads.  Some  are  men,  with  a  plow  or  a 
bundle  of  grass  or  a  fagot  of  sticks  for  their  burden  ;  some 
are  women  carrying  a  few  vegetables  which  they  have  raised 
in  their  gardens  to  sell  at  the  bazar  ;  some  are  children  ten 
or  twelve  years  of  age,  each  with  a  small  baby  strapped 
upon  the  back,  the  baby's  head  bobbing  about  at  every 
step  of  the  child  carrier,  the  baby  often  asleep  with  its  face 
turned  directly  to  the  blazing  sun,  and  then  again  just   as 


250  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

often  the  eyes  of  the  infant  will  be  wide  open  and  staring 
at  the  fierce  light  with  a  gaze  which  ought  to  make  it  blind, 
as  it  often  does.  The  prevalence  of  ophthalmia  and  all  man- 
ner of  diseases  of  the  eyes  in  the  East  is  easily  accounted 
for  bv  this  constant  exposure  of  young  and  old  to  the 
intense  light  of  the  sun  with  no  covering  to  protect  the 
sight.  The  Hindu  turban,  with  its  many  folds,  is  a  good 
cover  for  the  head,  but  it  affords  no  shade  for  the  eyes  ; 
the  Mohammedan  fez  protects  neither ;  it  is  especially  out 
of  place  in  every  land  where  Mohammedanism  prevails,  and 
it  is  useless  and  ugly  everywhere.  It  is  a  very  strange  thing 
that  the  natives  of  these  eastern  countries  have  been  living 
here  for  thousands  of  years,  suffering  unutterable  things 
from  the  intense  light  and  heat,  and  have  never  devised  any 
broad-brimmed  covering  for  the  head  as  a  shelter  from  the 
sun.  The  genius  of  invention  and  adaptation  is  utterly  want- 
ing among  the  millions  who  bow  towards  Mecca  in  prayer 
or  repeat  the  names  of  Rama  and  Buddha  in  their  devout 
meditations.  In  cities  and  villages  we  see  the  blind  every- 
where, led  by  the  hand  or  making  their  way  with  a  walking- 
stick  through  the  crowded  street  or  moaning  and  stumbling 
along  the  public  road;  and  nobody  among  the  natives  seems 
to  suspect  that  half  the  blindness  might  be  prevented  by 
the  adoption  of  some  suitable  covering  for  the  head.  When 
any  such  covering  is  recommended  by  wiser  men  from  the 
West,  they  can  only  say  that  the  customs  of  their  ancestors 
forbid  all  change  and  they  would  rather  go  blind  than  break 
caste.  Ismail  Pasha,  as  I  saw  him  in  1870,  was  dressed  in 
European  style  throughout,  except  the  red  and  rimless  fez 
on  his  head.      I  asked  why  he  did  not  wear  some   kind   of 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR   WINDOWS.  25  I 

head  covering  with  a  rim  for  the  protection  of   the   eyes 
from  the  sun ;  and  I  was  told  that   it  would   cost  him  his 
crown  as  viceroy  of   Egypt   if   he   should  appear  in   public 
with  a  hat  on  his  head  in  place  of  the  fez,  for  the  people 
would  understand  that  he  had  renounced  Mohammedanism 
and  they  would   rise  in  revolution.     The   streets   of    Cairo 
and  Alexandria  and  all  the  villages  of  Egypt  are  thronged 
with  red-eyed  children  who  are  fast  going  blind  or  becoming 
subjects  of  chronic  ophthalmia,  just  because  the  custom   of 
the  country  forbids  them  to  wear  any  fitting   shelter  from 
the  fierce  light  of  the  sun.     I  have  looked  over  the  heads 
of  thousands  of  people,  filling  the  street  from  side  to  side 
in  a  Chinese  city,  without  seeing  a  single  head  wearing  any 
kind  of  covering  at  all.     In  such  a  country  I  was  not  sur- 
prised to  find  many  blind.     I  found  a  man  at  Hankow  who 
had  traveled  three  hundred  miles  on  foot  with  a  boy  for  a 
guide  because  the  man  himself  was  stone  blind  when    he 
first  came  to  the  mission  hospital   to  be  cured.     The  sur- 
geon  succeeded  in  his  operation  upon  one    eye   and    then 
told  the  man  to  go  home  and  come  again  at  the  end   of 
some  months,  and  then  if  all  was  right  he  would  try  upon 
the  other  eye.     When  I  was  there  the  man  had  come  back 
for  the   second  operation    and    he    had    brought    forty-eight 
other   men   with  him,  all   seeking  help  from  the  wonderful 
physician  who  could  give  sight  to  the  blind.     Anywhere  in 
China  it  would  be  easy  to  get  together  many  times  forty- 
eight   persons  who   need   to   have   some   healing   operation 
upon  the  eyes. 

Looking  from  the  car  windows  in  Southern  India  we  see 
lar^e  herds  of   black  cattle  and  buffaloes  wandering  about 


252  AfORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  pasture  lands  and  the  jun^^les.  The  buffaloes  are  often 
very  large,  with  only  a  slight  sprinkle  of  coarse  hair  and 
strangely  twisted  and  crinkled  horns.  Sometimes  the  horns 
hang  down  on  each  side  of  the  head  like  the  ram's,  and  like 
his  are  coiled  about  in  a  ring.  Sometimes  they  stand  out 
from  the  head  nearly  in  a  straight  line  with  each  other  and 
measuring  four  feet  from  tip  to  tip.  Sometimes  one  stands 
up  and  the  other  points  as  directly  down  to  the  ground. 
Their  long,  pointed  horns,  red  nostrils,  and  keen  eyes  make 
them  look  dangerous ;  but  the  great  lubberly  animals  are 
very  kind  and  docile,  obeying  their  masters  very  meekly 
and  permitting  a  little  child  to  lead  them.  They  are  much 
more  manageable  than  their  smaller,  red-eyed,  and  vicious- 
tempered  brethren  of  the  same  name  that  wallow  in  the 
pools  of  the  Pontine  marshes  in  Italy.  Occasionally  one 
is  of  a  light  brown  or  yellowish  color,  looking  like  an  albino 
among  his  black  brethren  or  like  the  so-called  white  ele- 
phant of  Siam  among  the  black  monsters  that  pile  ship 
timber  at  Rangoon  and  carry  princes  in  Bangkok.  The 
buffaloes  are  all  exceedingly  fond  of  mud  and  water.  They 
delight  to  lie  down  in  the  tanks  and  mud  puddles  and  leave 
nothing  but  the  nose  out.  The  coolies  gratify  them  by 
plastering  them  all  over  with  mud  or  permitting  them  to 
lie  down  in  the  pools  and  cool  themselves  in  the  heat  of 
the  day. 

We  often  see  buffaloes  in  the  fields  preparing  the  ground 
for  planting  rice.  They  wade  about  with  the  men  in  the 
soft  mud,  both  are  equally  black  and  besmeared,  and  it  is 
not  always  apparent  which  is  master,  the  man  or  the  beast ; 
but  both  belong  to  the  country,  and  no  landscape  in  South- 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR   WINDOWS.  253 

ern  India  would  be  complete  without  them.  The  buffaloes 
and  the  oxen  have  undoubtedly  been  here  as  long  as  the 
men,  and  they  have  done  their  part  towards  making  the 
country  habitable  for  their  masters.  They  draw  carts  and 
bandys,  they  travel  at  a  trot  on  the  highways,  they  tread 
out  the  grain  on  the  threshing  floor,  they  supply  milk  for 
the  family  and  fire  for  the  cooking,  they  behave  themselves 
peaceably  in  towns,  and  they  relieve  the  landscape  in  the 
country.  India  without  buffaloes  would  be  like  Lapland 
without  reindeer. 

On  some  roads  the  public  bandy  takes  the  place  of  a  post 
coach  and  runs  all  night  with  relays  of  oxen  instead  of 
horses.  The  driver  sits  on  the  shafts  and  twists  the  tails 
of  his  team  instead  of  applying  the  whip  or  goad.  The 
bulky  beasts  move  along  the  road  at  a  slow,  swinging  trot 
from  sunset  to  sunrise,  and  at  break  of  day  I  have  found 
myself  fifty  miles  away  from  the  starting  place  of  the  even- 
ing before.  The  passengers  lie  at  full  length  inside  on  a 
bedding  of  hay  or  straw,  and  the  jolt  of  the  heavy  wheels 
over  the  broken  stone  of  the  macadam  road  makes  very 
little  difference  with  the  amount  of  sleep  secured  by  an 
old  Indian  traveler.  The  oxen  are  changed  every  six  miles, 
and  the  tail-twisting  torture  of  the  coolie  driver  is  not  so 
severe  as  to  require  attention  from  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals. 

We  often  see  women  washing  their  dark  faces  and  their 
bright-colored  cloths  in  the  tanks  and  pools  where  the  water 
is  already  so  muddy  as  to  be  of  the  same  color  with  the  trav- 
eled road  or  the  plowed  field.  Yet  the  faces  look  brighter 
for  the  bath  and  the  cloths  come  out  cleaner  than  they  went 


254  MORNING   LIGHT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

in.  They  take  great  pains  in  washing  their  long,  coarse,  black 
hair.  They  plunge  their  heads  under  water  again  and  again, 
wring  out  their  hair,  and  then  repeat  the  dip  in  the  muddy 
bath  a  dozen  times  over.  Sometimes  we  see  them  going 
through  the  process  of  purification  at  a  well.  In  that  case 
they  draw  bucketful  after  bucketful  and  one  performs  the 
kind  office  of  dashing  it  on  the  head  of  the  other.  They 
are  so  dark  already  that  one  cannot  easily  tell  whether  they 
are  whiter  after  the  washing  than  before.  When  they  have 
poured  fifteen  or  twenty  bucketfuls  over  the  head  or  have 
gone  as  many  times  under  water  in  the  tank  or  river  and 
they  think  their  tresses  are  sufficiently  clean,  they  apply  a 
large  amount  of  oil,  either  cocoanut  or  castor,  making  the 
hair  glisten  in  the  sun  like  a  newly  polished  boot.  After 
that  profuse  anointing  they  will  on  no  account  let  a  drop  of 
water  touch  the  head  till  the  time  comes  for  another  bath 
and  a  new  anointing  with  oil.  When  they  go  out  in  the 
rain  they  are  very  careful  to  shelter  the  head  from  the  fall- 
ing drops  by  carrying  a  palm  leaf  for  an  umbrella  ;  but  they 
do  not  mind  wetting  other  parts  of  the  body  or  the  small 
amount  of  clothing  that  they  wear.  It  is  to  be  said  in 
behalf  of  the  native  woman  of  India  that,  when  she  has 
made  her  toilet  in  her  own  way  and  wrapt  her  one  cloth  of 
seven  yards'  length  about  her  in  graceful  folds,  she  looks 
very  shiny  and  trim,  and  she  may  well  seem  very  charming 
and  attractive  in  the  eyes  of  the  other  sex  as  well  as  her 
own.  It  is  a  constant  surprise  to  western  people  that  the 
native  woman  of  the  East  can  seem  so  well  dressed  when 
she  has  nothing  on  save  one  plain  breadth  of  cloth. 

When  the  train  arrives  at  a  station  there  is  always  a  great 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR   WLVDOWS.  255 

number  of    people  waiting   to   get    aboard    or   to    see  who 
arrives  or  to  break  the  monotony  of  their  dull  and  passive 
existence  by  the  sight  of  something  that  has  life  and  power. 
They  are  apt  to  talk  loud,  very  fast,  and  make  a  great  deal 
of  noise.     The  station  master  moves  about  among  them  as 
if  he  were  in  authority  over  all  the  multitude,  as  in   fact  he 
is.     He  comes   out   with  a  pen  lodged  above  the   ear  and 
with  paper  in  hand  as  if  he  were  ready  to  write  down  the 
names  of  all  that  come  and  take  note  of  all  that  go.     He 
assigns  passengers  to  the  car  they  are  to  ride  in,  takes  the 
tickets  of  those  who  stop,  and  gives  the  signal  for  the  train 
to  start.     If  you  have  bought  a  ticket  for  the  second   class 
and  the  seats  in  that  are  all  taken  when   the   train   arrives 
and  you  happen  to  be  a  respectable  looking    stranger,  he 
will  put  you  into  the  first  class  and  tell  you  to  make  yourself 
comfortable  there  until  there  is  a  vacancy  in  the  second  ;  but 
that  means,  Stay  where  you  are  to  the  end  of  your  journey. 
The  station  master  is  every  way  a  more   important  man 
in  the   railway   management  than   the  conductor  or  guard. 
Nobody  has  the  right  to  start  or  stop  without  leave  from 
him.     He  speaks  English  and  gives  all  needed  information 
to   natives    and   foreigners    alike.       He    keeps    the    station 
grounds   ornamented   with   flowers    and  vines.     The    bright 
purple,   gold,   and   flame-colored    blossoms    make   a   striking- 
offset  to  the  picturesque  costumes  of  the  station  loungers, 
who  move  about  in  white,  red,  green,  and  scarlet  garments, 
as  well  as  in  the  dusky  livery  of  the  sun  concealed  by  no 
garments  at  all.     Beggars  mingle  with  the  crowd  and  hold 
up  their  mutilated  hands  or  their  distorted  limbs   to   move 
the  pity  of  the  passengers.     They  get  a  small  coin  now  and 


256  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

then  from  a  native,  but  the  European  always  says  it  is  given 
not  from  pity  for  the  poor  but  in  hope  that  the  gift  will 
make  merit  for  the  giver  and  secure  him  a  better  lot  in  the 
next  world.  This  is  one  of  the  contradictions  of  the  native 
faith.  In  all  the  superstitious  fears  which  they  entertain 
and  in  all  the  acts  of  worship  which  they  perform  they 
assume  that  the  gods,  or  the  powers  of  the  unseen  world 
—  whatever  they  may  be  —  are  hostile  to  man  ;  are  busy,  for 
the  most  part,  in  bringing  evil  upon  the  human  family. 
Yet  it  is  assumed  that  a  deed  of  kindness,  done  to  relieve 
the  miseries  which  the  gods  themselves  have  sent,  will 
bring  great  reward  to  the  doer  in  the  other  world  over 
which  the  gods  preside.  So  it  is  not  pity  to  the  poor  and 
suffering,  but  profit  for  himself  that  moves  the  doer  of  the 
kindly  act. 

Whenever  the  train  stops  coolies  come  alongside  of  the 
cars  bringing  water  for  the  thirsty  passengers  to  drink. 
They  carry  a  cup,  but  they  set  it  on  the  end  of  a  long  rod 
lest  they  should  defile  it  with  their  touch  and  thus  make  it 
unfit  for  a  higher  class  to  drink  from.  In  other  cases  the 
man  who  wishes  to  drink  makes  a  dish,  or  trough,  by  put- 
ting his  two  hands  together ;  the  coolie  pours  the  water  into 
the  hollow,  and  the  conscientious  man  drinks  with  nothing 
but  his  own  hands  to  defile  the  draught.  Near  every  village 
there  are  private  wells  and  a  public  tank  to  supply  water  for 
the  whole  town.  The  tank  is  seldom  what  we  would  call  a 
reservoir,  with  walls  built  up  around  and  a  deep  excavation 
inside  to  hold  the  water.  It  is  more  nearly  what  we  would 
call  a  pond,  made  by  throwing  a  dam  across  a  stream  or  a 
dry  hollow  between  hills  so  that  the  water  in  the  season  of 


VIEWS  FROM  CAR   WINDOWS.  257 

the  great  rains  may  be  kept  from  running  off.  As  one 
passes  through  the  country  by  rail,  the  tanks  look  in  the 
distance  just  like  ponds  or,  in  some  cases,  like  large  lakes 
many  miles  around,  and  holding  water  through  all  the  dry 
season  sufficient  to  supply  the  fields  and  gardens  of  thou- 
sands of  people. 

Everywhere  natives  may  be  seen  at  all  hours  of  the  day 
bathing  and  washing  clothes  in  the  large  tanks,  and  they  do 
that  all  the  same  when  it  is  only  a  small  basin  to  supply 
water  for  the  huts  of  a  single  village.  Often  there  is  a 
small  tank  filled  with  the  most  filthy  water  in  connection 
with  a  sacred  temple.  Offerings  of  various  kinds  of  fruit 
and  flowers  are  thrown  into  it  and  left  there  to  rot,  till  the 
sight  and  smell  of  the  water  become  intolerable  to  anybody 
but  devout  Hindus ;  and  yet  they  are  all  the  more  eager  to 
drink  the  water  and  pour  it  over  their  bodies  just  because  it 
is  so  filthy.  The  sacred  tanks  connected  with  the  temples 
of  Madura  and  Benares  and  Calcutta  are  as  bad  in  look  and 
smell  as  the  water  settled  in  the  hollow  of  a  barnyard  or 
the  sewage  from  the  worst  parts  of  a  great  city  ;  and  yet 
the  Hindus  dip  themselves  in  such  filth  to  make  their  souls 
and  bodies  clean  in  the  sight  of  the  unclean  gods  that 
preside  over  the  temples  and  homes  of  the  people.  Tanks, 
or  reservoirs,  in  Southern  India  often  cover  many  square 
miles  of  country.  Beautiful  park-like  trees  grow  on  the 
margin.  Soon  after  the  rains,  when  the  basins  are  full, 
thousands  of  trees  may  be  seen  standing  in  the  water  itself. 
Their  shining  green  leaves  and  their  shadows  on  the  surface 
and  their  reflection  from  the  depths  of  the  broad  lake  beau- 
tify a  landscape  which  would  otherwise  be  barren  and  naked. 


258  MOKNING  LIGHT  IN  MAiVY  LANDS. 

The  water  from  the  wells  is  drawn  up  in  buckets  of  skin 
attached  to  a  rope  which  is  sometimes  a  hundred  feet  long. 
An  inclined  plane,  equal  in  length  to  the  depth  of  the  well, 
is  dug  in  the  earth,  and  oxen  descend  the  plane  pulling  at 
the  rope  till  the  skin  bucket  comes  to  the  top  and  empties 
itself  into  the  trough.  Then  the  oxen  are  made  to  back  up 
to  the  mouth  of  the  well  again  and  thus  be  in  readiness  for 
another  draw.  The  oxen  are  sometimes  kindly  covered  with 
an  awning  to  break  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun.  A  coolie 
driver  keeps  them  at  their  work,  and  he  goes  up  and  down 
the  inclined  plane  every  time  the  bucket  rises  from  the  well 
and  goes  back  for  another  draught.  Little  rivulets  run  off 
among  the  fields  and  gardens  from  the  well,  and  the  fresh 
water  makes  everything  green  where  it  goes.  The  well  is 
a  fountain  of  life  to  the  garden  and  the  field.  When  the 
tanks  are  empty  and  the  wells  dry  up,  the  half-grown  grain 
is  changed  to  stubble  and  famine  looks  in  at  the  peasant's 
door. 

When  the  rainy  season  is  past,  the  river  beds  are  mostly 
bare.  The  train  passes  a  bridge  a  half  mile  in  length, 
supported  by  trestlework  and  covering  a  broad  channel 
down  which  the  flood,  gathered  from  the  plains  and  the 
distant  hills,  comes  rushing  for  a  few  weeks  on  its  way  to 
the  sea.  The  flood  soon  subsides  and  leaves  a  broad,  wind- 
ing stretch  of  sand  and  pebbles  glittering  in  the  sun  for  the 
rest  of  the  year.  What  water  remains  lies  in  pools  or 
creeps  along  in  a  shallow  rivulet  as  if  to  hold  the  right 
of  way  for  the  mighty  river  which  is  sure  to  come  in 
its  appointed  season  and  gladden  the  hearts  of  millions 
who  wait   for   the   sound   of   the  flood   and  the  shinins:   of 


V/£fVS  FROM   CAR   IVINDOIVS.  259 

the  sun  on  the  waters  as  wanderers  in  the  desert  wait  for 

the  day. 

Men  and  women  come  down  to  the  pools  or  the  low-lying 
stream  to  wash  clothes  and  dry  them  on  the  hot  sand. 
Sometimes  an  acre  of  ground  will  be  covered  with  white 
and  red  and  scarlet  and  blue  garments.  A  well-dressed 
Hindu  woman  wears  but  one  piece  of  cloth.  It  is  six  or 
eight  yards  long  and  one  yard  and  a  quarter  wide.  She 
wraps  it  in  graceful  folds  about  her  waist,  shoulders,  and 
body,  lets  it  hang  loose  in  some  parts  and  tucks  it  in  tight 
here  and  there  to  keep  it  in  place,  and  she  is  neatly  and 
becomingly  dressed  without  the  use  of  pin,  button,  hook,  or 
string.  When  fifty  such  full  dresses  are  stretched  out  at 
full  length  on  the  sand  to  dry,  they  cover  ground  enough 
for  the  camp  of  a  company  of  soldiers.  The  Hindus  are 
not  characteristically  a  cheerful  or  a  light-hearted  people.. 
The  nearest  approach  to  a  scene  of  life  and  youthful  laugh- 
ter that  I  ever  saw  in  India  was  a  group  of  a  hundred 
women  washing  by  the  riverside  when  the  water  was  low 
and  the  main  bed  of  the  stream  was  bare.  It  is  quite 
refreshing  to  the  weary  traveler  as  he  wakes  up  and  looks 
out  of  the  car  window  in  the  morning  upon  the  bright 
colors  on  the  sand  of  the  river  bed  and  he  hears  the  merry 
voices  of  the  women  mingled  with  the  rumble  of  the  train 
as  it  moves  slowly  over  the  bridge. 

It   would    detract    from    the    picturesque    appearance    of 

people  in  the  East  if  they  were  to  adopt    our   close-fitting 

style  of  dress.     But  the  change  must   come   if  the   East  is 

ever  to  take  its  place  with  the  West  in  the  grand  march  of 

■  civilization  and  the  varied  practical  industries  of  life.     The 


260  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

fez  and  the  turban,  the  showy  girdle,  and  the  long,  loose 
robe  appear  well  in  a  holiday  show,  but  they  are  not  fit  for 
active  work  in  the  fields  and  workshops  of  the  world.  In 
the  city  of  Cairo  I  received  many  calls  from  a  famous  Maro- 
nite  dragoman,  who  proposed  to  conduct  us  through  the 
desert  on  the  way  to  Jerusalem.  He  always  came  dressed 
in  flowing  robes,  wide  and  showy  girdle,  and  the  brilliant 
Damascus  khefiyeh.  When  we  were  well  out  in  the  desert 
he  appeared  in  high  boots,  trowsers,  and  a  roundabout  coat. 

"  How  is  this,  El  Hany,"  said  I,  "  that  you  have  laid  aside 
your  Oriental  dress  now  that  we  are  here  among  Bedouins.'*" 

"  Ah,"  said  he,  "  loose  robes  and  wide  girdles  will  do  for 
the  city  and  days  of  leisure,  but  when  we  have  hard  and 
active  work  to  do  we  must  lay  aside  petticoats." 

Mornings  are  not  all  beautiful  and  glorious  in  the  East, 
as  they  have  been  represented  by  poets  who  dreamed  under 
the  misty  mantle  of  German  fog  or  the  murky  shroud  of 
London  smoke.  And  yet  to  one  who  has  tossed  and  tum- 
bled all  night  on  the  board  bed  of  an  Indian  sleeping  car, 
the  breaking  of  the  day  is  always  bright  and  the  lifting  of 
the  veil  of  night  from  the  landscape  seems  like  a  new 
creation.  The  rising  light  falls  in  golden  waves  upon  the 
green  foliage  of  the  banyan  and  the  bo  trees  that  line  the 
public  roads  and  stretch  far  away  across  the  plain  to  the 
distant  hills.  The  sky  above  is  blue  and  dark,  but  it  never 
shows  the  transparency,  the  ethereal  brightness  of  an  Octo- 
ber morning  in  our  New  England  clime.  The  broad-leaved 
plants  about  the  stations,  the  plantains  and  bananas,  mingled 
with  castors  and  crotons  and  cocoanut  palm  and  palmyras, 
shine  with  dewdrops,  as  if  they  had  been  especially  decked 


VIE IV S  FROM  CAR   WfXDOlVS.  26  I 

and  adorned  by  the  night  to  greet  the  stranger  at  his 
coming.  A  hundred  flowerpots  stand  about  the  station  in 
tasteful  order  with  leaf  plants  cut  and  scalloped  and  spotted 
and  pointed,  in  every  variety  of  form  and  color,  yellow  and 
brown  and  scarlet  and  crimson  and  purple,  and  all  newly 
sprinkled  with  fresh  water  to  bring  out  the  hue  and  form 
of  each  ;  and  all  tell  the  awakened  sleeper  that  the  dull  and 
somber  world  of  the  great  East  has  not  been  left  forgotten 
or  unadorned  by  the  one  all-creating  Mind. 

Crows  and  rooks  and  magpies  lend  their  voices  to  swell 
the  music  of  the  morning,  and  they  make  up  in  noise  what 
is  wanting  in  harmony  to  welcome  the  rising  day.  The 
gentle  cooing  of  the  doves  in  the  tops  of  the  palms  answers 
back  to  the  merry  twitter  and  the  mischievous  pranks  of  the 
sparrows  that  dart  in  and  out  of  the  car  windows  and  claim 
a  part  of  the  passenger's  lunch  as  he  moves  away  on  the 
train.  All  these,  not  seen  clearly  enough  to  be  criticized 
in  hastily  passing  along,  make  the  mornings  in  the  East 
seem  beautiful  to  the  traveler  who  has  spent  the  long  night 
in  heat  and  dust  and  weariness.  He  is  glad  to  have  any 
change  which  will  break  the  monotonous  rumble  of  the 
train  and  divert  his  attention  from  his  giddy  head  and 
his  aching  limbs.  To  him  the  air  of  the  morning  seems  so 
fresh  and  invigorating,  everything  so  full  of  life  and  beauty, 
the  whole  creation  so  full  of  voices  lifted  up  in  praise  and 
gladness,  that  for  the  moment  he  forgets  the  darkness  of 
the  land  and  the  sad  lot  of  the  people.  The  rude  villagers, 
coming  out  of  their  mud  cabins  to  stare  at  the  train,  the 
naked  children  sitting  astride  on  the  hips  or  shoulders  of 
their  mothers,  the  little  brown  babies  strapped  to  the  backs 


262  MOJ^NLVG  LIGHT  LV  M.LVV  LANDS. 

of  older  children,  and  their  heads  bobbing  about  at  every 
step  of  the  carrier,  the  black-haired  coolies  eating  rice  with 
their  fingers  under  the  mango  tree  —  all  seem  for  the 
moment  to  the  traveler  to  be  happy  in  the  morning  sun. 
In  the  glow  of  his  gratitude  for  the  new  day  he  does  not 
dare  to  ask  the  presumptuous  question  why  all  these  millions 
and  millions  of  the  great  East,  for  ages  and  ages,  have  been 
born  to  such  a  sad  condition  in  this  world  and  to  so  little 
hope  for  anything  better  in  the  future. 

But  the  day  moves  on  and  the  lot  of  the  people  looks 
darker  when  they  are  seen  in  the  clear  light  crowding  about 
the  station  in  their  "  untended  raggedness,"  or  creeping 
across  the  fields  to  hide  themselves  from  the  fierce  heat  in 
their  mud  cabins.  Then  he  asks  with  deeper  earnestness 
how  these  ages  of  darkness,  which  still  brood  over  all  the 
East,  can  be  made  to  give  place  to  light  :  how  can  this  wor- 
ship of  dead  gods  under  every  green  tree  and  beside  every 
filthy  tank  be  made  to  give  place  to  the  worship  of  the  one 
only  living  and  true  God,  who  made  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  and  all  things  therein  ?  And  then,  looking  across  the 
fields  to  the  city  which  he  is  approaching  on  the  other  side 
of  the  river,  he  sees  the  spire  of  the  Christian  church  and 
a  schoolhouse  under  the  palms  and  dark-skinned  boys  with 
turbaned  heads  and  sandaled  feet  and  close-girt  loins,  gath- 
ering, with  satchels  over  their  shoulders  and  moving  along 
with  the  light  step  and  the  loud  laugh  of  western  boys ;  and 
then  he  hums  to  himself  the  dear  old  hymn,  — 

"The  morning  light  is  breaking. 
The  darkness  disappears." 

The  light  is  breaking  in   all   the  darkened   East,  and    it 


VIEIVS  FROM   CAJ?   WINDOWS.  263 

foreruns  a  brighter  day  than  the  people  of  those  lands 
have  seen  in  all  their  history.  When  it  reaches  the  high 
noon  of  cloudless  splendor  the  people  of  that  great  conti- 
nent of  ignorance  and  superstition  will  wonder  that  their 
fathers  wandered  so  long  in  darkness  and  never  saw  the 
clear  shining  of  the  full  day.  Then  the  cave  temples  and 
the  grotesque  gopuras  and  the  vast  halls  of  a  thousand 
columns  and  the  colossal  images  of  sleeping  gods  will  stand 
in  ruins  to  show  how  great  were  the  sacrifices  that  men 
offered  in  support  of  religions  that  darkened  the  minds 
and  debased  the  hearts  of  the  worshipers.  Then  too  the 
millions  of  a  free,  prosperous,  and  happy  people  will  bear 
grateful  witness  to  the  truth  of  Christ  which  has  set  them 
free  from  the  bondage  of  ages  and  the  blindness  of  igno- 
rance and  superstition. 


XVII. 

THE    POWER    OF    THE    GOSPEL. 

A  TISSIONARIES  in  the  South  Pacific  Ocean  went  to 
-'-'-'-  islands  inhabited  by  people  so  savage  and  ferocious 
that  the  boat's  crew  of  a  man-of-war  did  not  dare  to  come 
near  the  shore  for  fear  they  would  be  clubbed  and  eaten  by 
cannibals.  The  messengers  of  peace  were  obliged  to  leap 
into  the  sea  and  swim  to  land  with  the  Bible  bound  to  the 
top  of  their  head.  They  found  people  living  in  the  "stone 
age,"  which  wise  men  say  was  finished  some  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  years  ago.  Their  hatchets  and  hammers,  their 
knives  and  bowls  and  basins,  were  all  made  of  stone. 
Among  a  population  of  twenty  thousand  there  was  not  a 
yard  of  cloth,  there  was  not  a  path  that  a  stranger  could 
travel  without  peril  to  his  life,  there  was  not  a  cabin  or  a 
cave  where  he  could  sleep  with  any  surety  that  he  would  not 
be  murdered  before  morning.  Children  were  put  to  death 
by  their  own  parents,  the  aged  and  the  helpless  were  buried 
alive  or  cast  into  the  sea,  the  shipwrecked  mariner,  thrown 
upon  the  shore,  was  killed  and  eaten  ;  if  a  newborn  child 
were  permitted  to  live,  a  priest  was  sent  for  to  pray  over  him 
that  he  might  grow  up  to  be  a  murderer  and  an  adulterer,  a 
liar,  a  thief,  and  a  libertine,  glorying  in  the  commission  of 
every  crime.  Beautiful  valleys  were  set  with  stones  to  mark 
the  spot  where  men  had  been  killed  and  eaten  to  make  a 

264 


THE  POWER    OF  THE    GOSPEL.  265 

holy  day  feast  for  chiefs  and  warriors.  When  men  met  each 
other  on  solitary  paths  or  public  assemblies,  they  looked 
upon  each  other  as  the  lion  looks  upon  his  prey,  impatient 
to  gratify  the  universal  craving  for  human  flesh.  A  man 
was  esteemed  great  and  honorable  in  proportion  to  the  num- 
ber of  men  that  he  had  killed  and  provided  for  cannibal 
feasts. 

With  those  wild  beasts  of  men  the  messengers  of  peace 
and  good  will  made  their  home.  Some  died  of  hardship  and 
hunger,  some  were  murdered ;  others  came  eagerly  and 
promptly  to  fill  their  place.  With  ceaseless  toil  and  study 
they  found  their  way  into  the  dark  minds  of  those  brutal 
men.  They  gathered  up  the  words  of  their  meager  and 
unspiritual  language,  and  they  made  it  express  the  thoughts 
of  God  and  the  highest  truths  of  faith  and  culture.  They 
put  an  end  to  feasts  on  human  flesh,  they  made  it  safe  for 
strangers  to  travel  wherever  they  pleased,  they  caused  the 
people  to  put  away  lying  and  licentiousness,  cruelty  and 
robbery  and  murder.  At  the  end  of  twenty-five  years  there 
was  not  a  cannibal  or  a  heathen  on  the  whole  group.  The 
people  now  build  houses  and  wear  clothes  suitable  to  the 
climate.  They  learn  and  observe  the  principles  of  justice  and 
purity  and  truth.  Homes  are  peaceful  and  sacred,  children 
are  trained  up  in  the  ways  of  righteousness,  the  sick,  the 
aged,  and  the  infirm  are  tenderly  cared  for,  the  people  live 
together  as  one  brotherhood,  children  of  the  one  almighty 
and  all-loving  Father  in  heaven. 

Now  a  company  of  shipwrecked  mariners  is  thrown  upon 
the  shore,  and  one  of  the  number  climbs  a  hill,  slowly  and 
cautiously,  and  looking   down    into  a  quiet    valley    he   sees 


266  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  spire  of  a  church  and,  near  by,  the  roof  of  a  schoolhouse 
among  the  palms,  and  he  hears  the  voices  of  children  at  play 
about  the  door,  and  he  shouts  with  wild  and  unutterable  joy 
to  his  companions  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  :  "  We  are  safe  ! 
The  missionary  is  among  these  people,  and  now  we  have 
nothing  to  fear."  His  companions  respond  to  tlie  shout 
with  equal  joy.  They  had  feared  that  their  fate  would  be  to 
furnish  forth  a  cannibal  feast  for  the  barbarous  natives,  and 
now  they  are  sure  of  a  welcome  from  men  who  have  learned 
the  story  of  the  Good  Samaritan  and  are  trying  to  follow 
the  steps  of  Him  who  went  about  doing  good.  They  make 
their  way  to  the  first  village,  and  are  received  with  open 
arms  ;  they  are  distributed  among  the  cottages  ;  for  months 
they  are  provided  with  the  best  that  the  island  can  give. 
And  when  at  last  a  passing  ship  is  hailed  and  boats  come  off 
to  take  the  rescued  mariners  aboard,  they  go  with  gratitude 
in  their  hearts  and  with  the  blessing  of  converted  cannibals 
to  gladden  their  passage  home.  So,  too,  elsewhere  in  the 
great  Pacific,  the  gospel  has  repeated  its  miracles  of  power 
and  of  love,  making  new  creatures  of  men  in  whom  the 
first  elements  of  humanity  seemed  to  have  become  utterly 
extinct.  The  head-hunting  Dyak  and  the  man-eating  Fijian 
and  the  war-loving  Maori  have  learned  the  beatitudes  of 
mercy  and  peace,  and  they  have  made  their  island  homes 
seem  like  gardens  of  God  in  the  sea,  and  have  exposed 
themselves  to  torture  and  martyrdom  while  carrying  the 
message  of  life  to  other  islands  which  are  still  filled  with 
the  habitations  of  cruelty. 

There  is  only  one  power    in    this  world  which    has    ever 
accomplished  such  a  change  in  the  life  and  character  of  a 


THE  POWER    OF   THE    GOSPEL.  267 

brutal  and  grossly  savage  people.  Law,  secular  education, 
science,  philosophy,  civilization,  moral  culture,  fine  art,  free 
speech,  social  reform,  have  never  done  it.  Nothing  but  the 
divine  constraint  of  the  love  of  Christ,  as  set  forth  in  the 
simple  story  of  the  gospel,  has  ever  lifted  men  out  of  such 
awful  depths  of  degradation,  and  given  them  the  mastery  of 
the  brutal  appetites  and  passions  that  had  cast  them  down. 
No  class  of  social  reformers  or  secular  teachers  has  ever  gone 
to  a  lonely  island  of  the  ocean,  found  a  people  living  in  the 
utmost  barbarity  and  ignorance,  and  raised  them  out  of  that 
condition  to  a  high  degree  of  order  and  civilization  by  teach- 
ing science  and  the  natural  laws  of  life  without  any  reference 
to  the  gospel  of  Christ.  When  they  have  done  so  in  one 
instance,  it  will  be  soon  enough  to  question  the  peculiar 
fitness  and  power  of  Christianity  to  do  the  best  thing  for 
the  improvement  of  the  human  family  and  to  bring  m  a 
reign  of  righteousness  and  peace  on  the  earth. 

Philosophers  studied  the  Hottentot  to  find  the  connecting 
link  between  the  man  and  the  monkey.    The  Christian  Boers 
of  South  Africa  did  not  think  that  their  Hottentot   slaves 
were    fit    subjects    for    Christian    sympathy    or    instruction. 
Charles  Darwin  thought  the  Fuegians  were  still  in  a  transi- 
tion state,  and  not  yet  sufficiently  developed  into  humanity 
to  comprehend  the  simplest  lessons  of  spiritual  truth.     He 
thought  it  would  be  as  vain  and  foolish  to  attempt  to  Chris- 
tianize them  as  it  would  be  to  attempt  to  teach  dumb  animals 
to  speak.     I  have  heard  intelligent  and  professional  men  in 
our  own  country  declare  with  great  earnestness  and  every 
appearance  of  sincerity  that  negroes  have  no  souls.     Within 
the  remembrance  of  many  now  living,  the  highest  judicial 


268  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

authority  in  this  land  of  America  solemnly  declared  that 
black  men  have  no  rights  that  white  men  are  bound  to 
respect,  and  that,  too,  under  a  constitution  the  freest  and  the 
most  equitable  of  any  ever  adopted  by  any  people  on  the 
face  of  the  earth.  And  yet,  under  the  instruction  and 
personal  influence  of  the  missionary,  the  Hottentot  has 
made  the  great  discovery  that  he  is  a  man  made  in  God's 
i^nage,  and  destined,  like  his  white  brother,  to  live  forever. 
The  Fuegian,  half  naked  and  shivering  in  his  land  of  fire, 
has  shown  such  a  capacity  for  spiritual  truth  and  has  devel- 
oped so  much  manhood  under  gospel  teaching  that  Darwin 
honorably  confessed  that  the  missionary  was  right,  and  him- 
self mistaken,  in  his  judgment  of  the  man,  and  Darwin 
testified  the  sincerity  of  his  confession  by  contributing  to 
the  support  of  the  Christian  teaching,  which,  he  said,  was 
better  than  his  philosophy.  The  negro  is  slowly  rising  to 
equal  rank  with  scholars  and  statesmen,  and  we  can  already 
see  the  dawn  of  the  day  when  the  Dark  Continent  shall  be 
filled  with  light. 

When  the  missionary  first  made  his  way  through  the 
mountains  into  the  Bechuana  country  in  South  Africa,  there 
was  not  a  tool  or  an  implement  or  a  fabric  of  foreign  manu- 
facture in  the  whole  land.  The  veteran  pioneer,  in  preaching 
the  gospel  to  those  dark  tribes,  saw  the  day  when  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  English  goods  were 
required  every  year  to  answer  the  demands  of  civilization 
which  the  work  of  the  missionary  had  created.  The  Zulu 
sold  his  children  for  cattle ;  he  slept  in  a  kraal,  which  was 
little  better  than  a  dog  kennel ;  he  crept  out  in  the  morning 
and  sought  to  stay  his  hunger  by  living,  like  the  jackal,  on 


THE  POWER    OF   THE    GOSPEL.  269 

the  leavings  of  the  lion,  or  by  feeding,  like  the  vulture,  upon 
carrion.  Messengers  of  the  gospel,  ambassadors  of  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  forerunners  of  light  and  civilization,  came 
from  beyond  the  sea,  settled  down  among  that  dark  people, 
worked  their  way  slowly  into  their  language  and  their  life, 
and  now  the  Zulu  lives  in  framed  houses,  wears  the  gar- 
ments of  civilization,  reads  books  and  supports  schools  and 
churches,  sends  to  Boston  for  tools,  furniture,  and  agricul- 
tural implements,  and  stands  ready  to  take  his  place  in  the 
forward  march  of  nations. 

The  Kaffir  child  in  South  Africa  was  nursed  and  kept 
alive  in  infancy  by  his  mother.  When  he  grew  up  to  strong 
manhood  he  made  that  mother  carry  burdens  for  him  like  a 
pack-horse,  he  set  her  to  dig  up  the  ground  with  a  heavy 
mattock  like  a  slave.  When  she  became  prematurely  old, 
and  could  no  longer  carry  burdens  for  her  son,  he  exposed 
her  in  the  forest  or  on  the  hillside  to  be  devoured  by  lions. 
Now  that  that  unnatural  son  has  heard  the  story  of  the  love 
of  Jesus,  his  cruel  and  ungrateful  heart  has  been  melted  into 
tenderness  by  the  voice  which  said  from  the  cross,  "  Son, 
behold  thy  mother."  The  Christian  Kaffir  takes  his  mother 
to  his  own  home  and  cares  for  her  tenderly  in  her  old 
age,  as  she  cared  for  him  in  his  infancy.  Science,  phi- 
losophy, secular  education,  social  reform,  never  did  such 
things  for  an  ignorant  and  brutal  savage.  Nothing  but  the 
divine  and  new-creating  spirit  of  the  gospel  has  ever  been 
able  to  cast  out  the  demons  of  cruelty  and  ingratitude  and 
lust  from  the  hearts  of  such  men,  and  bring  them  to  the 
practice  of  gentleness  and  purity  and  love. 

The  Turkish  government  sent  an  army  of  six   thousand 


270  MORXIXG  LIGHT  IN  MAXY  l.AXDS. 

men  to  exterminate  a  city  of  robbers  in  Northern  Syria. 
An  American  missionary  got  the  news  of  what  was  going 
on,  and  he  rode  over  the  wild  Taurus  Mountains  to  offer 
himself  as  a  mediator  between  the  city  and  the  soldiers. 
He  requested  the  Turkish  commander  to  stay  proceedings 
until  he  could  go  into  the  city  and  confer  with  the  head- 
men. The  request  was  granted  simply  because  it  came 
from  a  missionary  and  an  American,  who  could  be  safely 
trusted  by  Moslems,  when  they  did  not  dare  to  trust  each 
other.  The  missionary  went  into  the  doomed  city,  saw  the 
headmen,  gave  them  such  advice  as  he  thought  best,  and 
secured  from  them  the  pledges  that  he  wanted.  He  then 
went  back  and  said  to  the  Turkish  officer  that  he  would  be 
responsible,  personally,  for  the  peace  and  good  order  of  the 
people  whose  lives  were  threatened.  The  Turkish  comman- 
der accepted  the  guaranty  of  the  missionary's  word  and 
withdrew  his  troops  without  firing  a  gun  or  burning  a  house. 
Probably  there  was  not  a  Mohammedan  in  all  the  empire 
whose  solemn  oath  the  Turkish  general  would  have  thought 
it  safe  to  trust.  He  took  the  bare  word  of  the  Christian 
missionary,  and  left  the  doomed  city  to  rest  in  peace.  From 
that  day  to  this  the  wild  mountaineers  have  called  the  mis- 
sionary their  savior.  A  second  and  a  third  time  he  came 
to  their  help,  once  when  they  were  dying  of  a  disease 
brought  upon  them  by  their  own  vices,  and  once  when 
many  of  them  were  made  houseless  by  a  fire  kindled  by 
their  own  carelessness  and  permitted  to  rage  by  their  own 
passive  submission  to  destiny.  Afterwards,  whenever  the 
missionary  rode  over  the  barren  mountains  to  have  a  little 
talk  with  that  wild  and  turbulent  people,   every  man    who 


THE  POWER    OF  THE    GOSPEL.  27  I 

met  him  would  be  his  bodyguard  and  every  house  he 
entered  in  the  city  of  robbers  was  his  sanctuary.  What- 
ever Moslems  and  heathen  may  say  against  missionaries, 
they  all  trust  them  with  unquestioning  confidence  in  time 
of  need,  and  they  all  believe  that  a  divine  power  goes  with 
the  disciples  of  Jesus  for  their  protection  and  to  give  them 
success  in  the  work  they  have  come  to  do  in  their  Master's 
name. 

The  United  States  government  brought  seventy  Indians 
to  St.  Augustine,  in  Florida,  as  prisoners  of  war.  Every 
one  of  them  had  taken  the  life  of  men,  most  of  them  more 
than  once.  They  were  handcuffed  and  chained  together 
and  soldiers  kept  guard  over  them  with  loaded  arms.  They 
wore  long  hair,  they  had  wampum  and  war  paint  on,  and 
their  wild  looks,  as  they  passed  along  the  streets,  made  the 
spectators  shudder  and  glad  to  see  that  they  were  chained. 
They  were  imprisoned  in  the  old  Fort  Marion  and  a  Chris- 
tian captain  was  put  in  charge  of  the  gates  and  walls  and  of 
all  inside.  The  Indians  never  shed  a  tear  of  sorrow,  they 
never  laughed,  they  never  sighed  or  groaned  under  pain, 
they  never  feared  the  face  of  men.  They  would  not  conde- 
scend to  speak  a  word  of  English  in  the  hearing  of  their 
guard,  although  some  of  them  knew  the  language  well. 
They  thought  it  a  dishonor  to  touch  hand  to  any  useful 
work  ;  they  would  rather  be  burned  alive  than  have  it  said 
that  they  were  willing  to  wear  the  white  man's  dress  or  to 
go  the  white  man's  road.  And  yet,  with  quiet  energy,  with 
invincible  courage,  with  enlightened  common  sense,  that 
Christian  captain  commanded  the  fear,  won  the  confidence, 
and  melted  the  hearts  of  that  terrible  band  of  stolid,  cruel, 


272  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

and  implacable  men.  I  have  sat  at  table  and  knelt  in  prayer 
and  joined  in  sacred  song  with  those  fierce  warriors  whose 
hands  had  been  red  with  blood  and  who  had  been  proud 
to  wear  the  scalps  of  murdered  men.  I  have  met  with  them 
in  the  casemate  of  the  fort  when  the  voices,  which  had  been 
trained  to  the  war  whoop,  were  lifted  up  in  praise  so  loud 
and  strong  that  the  arches  trembled  as  if  under  the  recoil 
of  heavy  guns. 

The  power  which  wrought  that  mighty  change  in  those 
bloody  men  is  the  same  as  that  which  goes  with  the  mis- 
sionary of  the  cross  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  And  that 
one  experiment  of  the  Christian  captain  at  St.  Augustine, 
in  touching  the  hearts  of  his  savage  prisoners  with  the  love 
of  Christ,  has  done  more  than  any  other  one  thing  towards 
teaching  our  government  to  adopt  a  new  and  better  policy 
than  force  in  settling  the  Indian  question.  Soldiers  and 
civilians  worked  at  the  problem  for  a  hundred  years,  and 
the  only  sign  of  success  was  extermination,  and  that  at  a 
fearful  outlay  of  men  and  money.  It  cost  a  million  dollars 
and  the  lives  of  twenty-five  white  men  to  kill  one  Indian. 
When  the  missionary  went  out  to  succeed  the  soldier,  and 
the  Bible  took  the  place  of  bullets,  fourteen  fifteenths  of  the 
money  and  all  of  the  men  were  saved,  and  the  Indian  too. 
The  government,  with  millions  of  money  and  any  needed 
number  of  soldiers  at  command,  utterly  failed  in  rescuing  the 
Indian  from  the  degradation  of  savage  life  and  in  clearing  the 
national  name  from  dishonor.  The  presence  of  one  Chris- 
tian missionary  has  been  a  better  guaranty  of  peace  among 
warlike  tribes  than  a  thousand  soldiers  under  the  command  of 
the  best  leader  that  ever  led  the  battle  or  the  chase.     Under 


THE  POWER    OF  THE    GOSPEL. 


J6 


the  influence  of  Christian  instruction,  the  roving  hunter  has 
settled  down  to  a  quiet  life  and  permanent  habitations,  the 
bloodthirsty  brave  has  abandoned  the  warpath  and  taken 
to  the  plow,  the  lodge  and  the  wigwam  have  given  place 
to  the  comfortable  home,  the  schoolhouse,  and  the  church, 
and  the  unprotected  traveler  comes  and  goes  in  peace  and 
safety,  where,  a  few  years  ago,  the  stagecoach  carried  a 
battery  of  arms  for  self-defense,  and  the  daring  hunter  was 
more  watchful  to  avoid  the  warpath  of  the  red  men  than 
to  find  the  track  of  the   buffalo. 

We  find  an  Island  Empire  of  thirty-eight  millions  of 
people  in  the  far  East.  They  are  quick  in  movement,  ver- 
satile in  art,  courteous  in  manners,  but  they  are  reduced  in 
stature  and  weakened  in  physical  force  by  the  long  practice 
of  low  and  wasting  vices.  They  make  the  impression  on 
the  traveler,  who  does  not  understand  their  language  and 
who  stays  among  them  only  for  a  little  while,  that  they  are 
kind  and  gentle,  and  that  their  homes  must  be  habitations 
of  purity  and  peace.  But  a  physician  who  has  lived  among 
them  for  half  a  lifetime,  and  who  has  ministered  to  thou- 
sands of  patients  every  year,  says  they  are  the  most  disso- 
lute people  that  he  has  ever  seen  or  heard  of  on  the  face  of 
the  earth.  They  have  been  governed  by  one  unbroken 
dynasty  of  kings  for  twenty-five  hundred  years.  With  an 
outward  show  of  courtesy  and  civility  they  disguise  a  deep, 
inbred  treachery  and  cruelty.  They  have  no  pity  for  the 
suffering,  no  gentleness  for  the  feeble,  no  tenderness  for 
children.  The  newborn  child  is  kept  alive  or  thrown  into 
a  pit  and  buried,  just  as  the  caprice  or  the  convenience  of 
the  parents  may  prompt  at  the  time  of  the  birth.     They  are 


274 


MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


reckless  of  life,  they  account  suicide  honorable,  they  build 
monuments  to  murderers,  they  are  destitute  of  humanity, 
their  punishments  are  too  horrible  and  revolting  to  be 
described.  Their  religion,  their  traditions,  their  supersti- 
tions, their  social  usages,  have  come  down  to  them  from  ages 
so  remote,  they  have  been  wrought  into  the  history  and 
character  of  the  people  so  closely,  they  have  been  confirmed 
and  strengthened  and  consecrated  by  such  long  and  uniform 
practice,  that  it  would  seem  impossible  for  such  a  people 
to  change.  There  is  no  precedent  in  all  history  to  warrant 
us  in  saying  that  such  a  people  will  cast  off  the  chains 
which  have  bound  them  for  ages  and  start  out  to  take  their 
place  among  the  progressive  nations  of  the  earth,  with  new 
faith,  new  science,  new  education,  new  customs,  new  arts, 
and  all  in  one  generation.  Yet  that  is  just  what  Japan  is 
doing  in  our  day.  The  people  seem  to  have  stepped  right 
out  of  the  dark  ages  of  heathenism  and  superstition  into 
the  full  light  of  the  nineteenth  century.  And  the  one  all- 
quickening,  new-creating  power  which  has  given  new  life 
to  that  people  is  the  power  which  goes  with  the  missionary 
on  his  errand  of  mercy  and  peace  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
It  is  the  power  which  makes  the  cannibal  a  Christian, 
raises  up  the  Hottentot  to  the  highest  rank  of  humanity, 
makes  the  Fuegian  a  surprise  to  the  philosopher  and  a 
living  monument  of  God's  mercy  to  the  world. 

The  history  of  Japan  for  the  last  twenty-five  years  seems, 
more  nearly  than  anything  else  we  find  in  history,  a  fulfill- 
ment of  the  ancient  word  of  prophecy,  "  A  nation  shall  be 
born  in  a  day."  A  despotic  government  has  voluntarily 
proclaimed  a  constitution ;  the  right    of  suffrage    has    been 


THE  POWER   OF   THE    GOSPEL.  275 

given  to  the  people  ;  provision  has  been  made  for  assembling 
two  houses  of  legislation  with  concurrent  power  and 
responsibility  in  enacting  laws  ;  carriage  roads  have  been 
built  ;  railways,  telegraphs,  and  telephones  have  been  brought 
into  use  ;  public  schools,  normal  schools,  schools  for  educa- 
tion in  law  and  medicine,  colleges  and  a  national  university 
have  been  established  ;  the  best  educational  books  have  been 
imported  by  the  thousand  and  put  to  use  ;  daily  newspapers 
have  been  started  and  supported  ;  banks,  post  ofhce,  coin- 
age, lines  of  steamships,  exchanges,  laboratories,  philosophi- 
cal apparatus,  tools,  engines  for  all  manner  of  work  in  the 
arts,  have  been  introduced  ;  the  costume  of  western  nations 
has  been  adopted  by  the  leading  classes,  and,  last  and  most 
significant  of  all  merely  secular  changes,  it  is  required  by 
law  that  the  English  language  shall  be  taught  in  the  public 
schools  of  the  empire. 

All  this  sudden  and  sweeping  revolution  in  public  law,, 
order,  and  education  in  Japan  has  sprung  from  the  belief 
on  the  part  of  leading  men  in  that  land  that  the  religion 
of  the  gospel  is  the  greatest  power  on  this  earth  for  lifting 
up  decayed  nations  and  giving  new  life  and  hope  to  mil- 
lions that  have  long  wandered  in  darkness.  The  thinking 
and  inquiring  men  of  Japan  believe  that  the  source  of  the 
great  power  and  riches  and  prosperity  of  Christian  nations 
is  their  religion,  their  adherence  to  the  instructions  and  the 
leadership  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  believe  that  the  Christian 
nations,  alone,  have  any  hope  for  the  future,  and  they  them- 
selves must  give  place  to  the  advance  of  the  one  universal 
religion  of  the  gospel,  if  they  are  to  have  any  part  or  stand- 
ing in  the  great  future,  the  glorious  age,  for  the  coming  of 


276  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

which  the  Christians  are  working  and  praying  in  every  land. 
They  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  Christianity  has 
quickened  mind,  stimulated  invention,  increased  power,  mul- 
tiplied riches,  advanced  science,  improved  education,  intensi- 
fied effort,  awakened  hope  and  high  expectation,  among  all 
western  nations.  Aback  of  steamships,  telegraphs,  railways, 
telephones,  aback  of  all  inventions  in  the  arts,  all  discoveries 
in  science,  all  advance  in  civilization,  they  see  Christianity. 
They  believe  that  the  supreme  power  that  rules  in  the  world 
is  on  the  side  of  the  men  who  believe  in  the  Christian's  Book 
and  are  faithful  in  the  endeavor  to  lead  the  Christian  life.  If 
they  are  to  join  the  onward  march  of  the  nations  to  a  great 
future,  they  think  they  must  believe  in  that  Book  and  become 
Christians  too.  They  say  that  often  ignorantly,  because  they 
have  been  bewildered  and  half  blinded  by  the  great  light 
which  has  broken  in  upon  them  from  the  West,  and  they  are 
like  Peter  on  the  mount  of  the  transfiguration  speaking  and 
yet  not  knowing  what  to  say.  The  great  hope  of  mis- 
sionaries in  Japan  is  that  when  the  bewilderment  of  sudden 
waking  from  centuries  of  sleep  has  passed  the  people  of 
that  land,  like  the  disciples  on  the  mount,  will  see  no  man, 
no  human  policy  or  philosophy,  as  the  source  of  their  new 
life,  but  Jesus  only.  Of  one  thing  many  of  their  leading 
men  are  already  quite  sure.  They  are  ready  to  give  up 
their  despotic  government,  their  gross  idolatry,  their  popu- 
lar traditions  and  sacred  customs,  and  even  their  national 
language,  if  they  can  only  get  the  power,  the  progress,  the 
grand  advance,  and  the  great  hope  which  the  gospel  gives 
to  all  who  receive  its  word  and  walk  in  its  light.  Many  of 
the  foremost  men  of  Japan,  who  have  no  desire  or  expecta- 


THE  POWER   OF    THE    GOSPEL.  2  J  J 

tion  of  becoming  Christians  themselves,  still  think  it  would 
be  greatly  for  the  good  of  the  country  if  the  common  people 
should  receive  the  gospel  and  conform  their  lives  to  its 
instructions. 

This  has  all  come  to  pass  in  our  day  :  not  directly 
before  our  eyes,  but  within  twenty  days  of  our  doors  and 
within  reach  of  direct  and  constant  communication.  Our 
own  personal  friends  and  brethren  are  in  the  midst  of  this 
most  rapid  and  mighty  social,  intellectual,  and  moral  revolu- 
tion which  has  ever  taken  place  in  all  history.  They  know 
whereof  they  affirm  when  they  tell  us  what  God  is  doing  by 
their  hands  in  the  Sunrise  Kingdom  of  the  great  sea.  They 
themselves  are  no  small  part  of  the  living  force  which  has 
shaken  one  of  the  oldest  and  mightiest  of  the  strongholds 
of  heathenism  to  its  foundation.  They  need  to  be  wise 
men,  cautious  and  conservative,  prudent  and  well  balanced 
in  judgment,  not  to  be  carried  away  from  their  sound  dis- 
cretion by  the  swiftness  and  the  force  of  the  current  with 
which  everything  about  them  is  moving  forward.  They  are 
very  well  aware  that  reaction  and  opposition,  delay  and  diffi- 
culty, may  come,  and  their  hopes  in  some  instances  may  be 
disappointed.  But  the  most  cautious  and  conservative  feel 
sure  that  the  new  day  which  has  dawned  so  swiftly  upon 
the  Sunrise  Kingdom  will  not  go  backward  but  will  advance 
to  the  high  and  cloudless  noon.  When  one  goes  over  to  the 
Island  Empire  and  stays  a  few  weeks,  moving  about  among 
the  missionaries  and  the  people  and  catching  the  spirit 
which  is  breathing  the  new  life  of  a  new  and  mighty  youth 
into  an  old  and  dying  empire,  and  then  comes  home  and 
tells  the  story  to  Christians  in   his   own    country,  and  they 


278  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

listen  with  little  emotion  and  much  incredulity,  it  seems  to 
him  that  the  word  of  the  Lord  by  the  ancient  prophet  had 
come  true  again,  "  I  will  work  a  work  in  your  days,  which 
ye  will  not  believ^e,  though  it  be  told  you." 

But  it  must  be  believed.  The  Church  in  this  land  of 
America  will  drift  far  away  from  the  foundations  of  practical 
faith  if  we  do  not  believe  in  the  mighty  works  which  Christ 
is  doing  in  our  day  in  Japan.  The  signs  and  wonders  which 
exalted  Capernaum  and  Chorazin  to  heaven  in  point  of 
privilege,  and  for  rejecting  which  the  favored  cities  of  the 
sea  were  doomed,  were  not  greater  confirmations  of  the 
divine  mission  of  the  Son  of  God  than  the  lifting  of  a 
hundred  cities  and  a  thousand  villages  and  millions  of  peo- 
ple into  the  light  which  shines  to  guide  all  wanderers  into 
the  way  of  peace.  That  work  is  just  as  real  and  satisfying 
a  demonstration  of  the  infinite  power  and  divine  authority 
which  confirm  His  Word  and  His  Commission  to  His  Church, 
as  it  would  be  if  He  should  appear  in  visible  person  and  raise 
the  dead  to  life  before  our  eyes.  It  is  more  blessed  to  be- 
lieve in  the  work  wrought  by  His  Spirit  and  Word  upon  the 
living  souls  of  redeemed  men  than  it  would  be  to  l)elieve  in 
the  reality  of  His  risen  body  when  he  stood  before  us  in  the 
open  light  of  day  for  all  eyes  to  see.  This  wonderful  move- 
ment in  Japan  is  the  last  grand  confirmation  of  the  divine 
authority  of  the  great  missionary  enterprise,  demonstrating, 
for  the  encouragement  of  the  Church  and  for  the  confusion 
of  all  skeptics,  that  the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God  has  power 
to  raise  up  and  quicken  nations  that  have  been  held  under 
the  dominion  of  darkness  and  death  long  as  the  mummy  of 
the  Pharaohs  has  slept  in  the  catacombs  of  the  Nile. 


THE  POWER   OF  THE    GOSPEL.  279 

This  work  in  Japan  is  as  strange  and  mighty  as  that  done 
by  the  gospel  in  Fiji  and  Samoa,  in  Papua  and  Hawaii,  in 
Kaffirland  and  Patagonia,  and  it  gives  brighter  promise 
of  better  days  to  come  and  greater  things  in  the  future. 
The  people  themselves  are  not  a  mere  handful,  like  the 
decaying  islanders  of  the  great  sea  or  the  savage  tribes  of 
the  barbarous  shore.  They  are  more  in  number  than  the 
population  of  the  British  Isles.  A  thousand  years  ago 
they  were  more  civilized  than  the  inhabitants  of  l^ritain, 
and  now,  like  their  nearest  and  more  numerous  neighbors 
on  the  continent,  they  are  full  of  irrepressible  and  invul- 
nerable life.  They  are  more  inventive,  more  adaptable, 
more  inquisitive  than  the  Chinese.  Since  they  have  been 
touched  by  the  all-quickening  spirit  of  Christianity  they  are 
ready  to  go  wherever  the  light  leads,  they  are  eager  to 
grasp  the  results  of  all  research  and  discovery  and  inven- 
tion, they  step  forward,  uncalled,  to  take  their  place  in  the 
grand  march  of  the  nations  toward  a  reign  of  righteousness 
and  peace  on  the  earth.  Let  them  be  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity and  they  will  strengthen  millions  of  their  neighbors 
in  the  populous  East.  Let  them  be  enlightened  in  Chris- 
tian science  and  trained  in  Christian  virtues  and  fired  with 
Christian  faith  and  they  will  kindle  beacon  lights  on  the 
hilltops  of  their  island  home  bright  enough  for  three  hun- 
dred millions  of  the  Chinese  to  see  on  the  table-lands  of 
Mongolia,  on  the  cloudy  mountains  where  the  Yang-tse- 
Kiang  takes  its  rise,  and  on  all  the  plains  of  the  eighteen 
provinces  from  the  Tiger's  mouth  of  Canton  to  the  crum- 
bling towers  of   the  Great  Wall  on  the  north. 

If   this  strange  and  mighty  work  of    God  in  Japan  does 


2 So  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

not  touch  the  hearts  and  enkindle  the  hopes  of  Christians 
in  America,  it  must  be  because  they  have  forgotten  the 
words  which  Christ  spoke  when  he  gave  his  Church  the 
great  commission  to  disciple  all  the  nations.  But  that  final 
word  of  the  ascending  Christ,  who  gives  us  all  our  hope, 
must  not  be  forgotten.  It  were  better  that  the  most  skill- 
ful hand  among  us  should  forget  its  cunning,  the  most  elo- 
quent tongue  should  be  struck  with  palsy,  than  that  we 
should  only  stand  far  off  and  gaze  and  wonder  at  God's 
great  work  among  the  heathen,  and  have  no  part  in  that 
work  ourselves,  feel  no  joy  in  its  advance,  put  forth  no 
effort,  give  no  gift,  make  no  sacrifice  to  carry  it  on. 


XVIII. 

WORK    ALREADY    DONE. 


A 


WIDE  and  rapid  glance  at  the  most  diverse  portions 
of  the  great  missionary  field  of  the  world  will  discover 
abundant  evidence  that  the  gospel  is  now,  not  less  than  of 
old,  the  power  of    God  unto  the  confutation  of   all   human 
error  and  folly,  the  good  news  of  God  for  all  the  discouraged 
and  heartbroken,  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ   bringing 
life  and  immortality  to  light.     It  is  God's  chosen  instrumen- 
tality for  the  accomplishment   of   all   that   needs    first    and 
most  to  be  done  to  bring  in  the  reign  of  righteousness  and 
peace  in  all  the  earth.     Wherever  men  have  gone  forth  into 
the  field,  relying  upon  Christ's  promise,  evermore  unto  the 
end,  to  give  his  presence  to  cheer  and  his  power  to   help, 
they  have  been  successful  in  gathering  in  the  harvests    of 
eternal  life.     Success  has  sometimes  been  long  delayed,  and 
then  it  has  come  with  the  suddenness  of  the  descent  of  the 
Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and  with  a  fullness  that  con- 
firmed the  feeblest  faith  and  filled  the  weary  laborers  with 
unspeakable  joy.     The  work  is  no  longer  a  doubtful  experi- 
ment, but  a  glowing  and  glorious   success,  never  more   so 
than  now.     No  new  explorer,  however  ardent  and  daring, 
can  henceforth  find  a  field   harder  than  any  ever  found  and 
made  to  yield  fruit  before.     No  difficulties  can  arise  greater 
than  any  which  have  been  already  met  and  overcome.     No 


281 


282  MORXING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

race  or  tribe  of  men  can  be  found  in  depths  of  ignorance 
and  superstition  deeper  and  darker  than  the  state  from 
which  fallen  men  have  already  been  lifted  up  to  the  light 
of  life  and  clothed  in  the  seemly  garments  of  righteousness 
and  peace. 

Full  provision  has  been  made  for  a  united  and  swift 
advance  by  every  division  of  God's  host,  in  every  quarter  of 
the  contested  field.  The  preparatory  work  has  cost  long 
years  of  waiting  and  the  heartsickness  of  deferred  hope ; 
it  has  cost  hard  labor  and  much  suffering,  millions  of  money 
and  many  precious  lives.  The  lessons  of  experience  have 
been  dearly  bought,  but  they  have  proved  to  be  worth  more 
than  the  cost.  On  the  greater  part  of  the  missionary  field 
the  preparatory  work  has  been  done,  and  well  done.  Often 
it  has  been  hard  to  hold  an  advanced  post,  and  harder  still 
to  move  on  and  win  more.  But,  taking  the  whole  field  as 
one,  there  has  been  little  giving  up  of  ground  once  gained, 
no  surrender  to  superior  force,  no  proposal  to  close  the 
campaign  with  anything  less  than  conquest,  no  suppression 
of  the  Christian  war  cry,  "The  whole  world  for  Christ  !  " 

Every  zone  of  the  earth  has  been  explored  and  inhabited 
by  missionaries  of  the  cross.  They  have  gone  to  their  fields 
of  toil  as  truly  in  the  name  of  the  divine  Master  as  John 
went  to  Patmos  and  Paul  went  to  Rome.  They  have 
learned  to  live  in  all  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  rain  and 
sunshine,  plenty  and  famine.  Everywhere  they  have  been 
the  forerunners  of  civilization,  they  have  created  the  call  for 
commerce,  they  have  been  the  first  to  make  education  pos- 
sible and  necessary  among  rude  tribes  and  the  lowest  races 
of  men.      Missionaries    have   adapted   themselves   to   every 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE.  283 

means  of  subsistence,  every  mode  of  travel,  every  style  of 
dress,  every  kind  of  habitation,  every  form  of  practical  work. 
In  the  time  of  need,  the  missionary  has  been  the  architect, 
building  the  church,  the  college,  or  the  private  home,  and 
adapting  each  to  the  climate  of  the  country  and  the  habits 
of  the  people  whom  he  was  lifting  up  to  a  better  civiliza- 
tion and  higher  life.  When  the  pestilence  came  and  brooded 
over  the  land  and  thousands  died  and  millions  mourned,  the 
missionary  has  been  the  physician,  visiting  the  sick,  comfort- 
ing the  sorrowing,  burying  the  dead.  When  famine  followed 
the  drouth  and  the  plague,  and  the  skeletons  of  the  starving 
people  lined  the  public  roads  and  lay  unburied  in  the  streets 
of  the  villages,  the  missionary  has  been  the  philanthro- 
pist, feeding  the  hungry  and  clothing  the  naked  and  bring- 
ing back  hope  to  a  despairing  population.  When  war  has 
broken  out  between  tribes  and  nations,  and  towns  and  fields 
have  been  ravaged  by  contending  forces,  the  missionary  has 
been  the  mediator  passing  between  hostile  ranks  and  restor- 
ing peace.  When  fire  has  desolated  cities  and  villages,  or 
flood  has  swept  away  the  harvest,  the  missionary  has  been 
the  first  to  bring  help  from  afar  to  rebuild  the  burnt  houses 
and  repair  the  waste  in  the  fields. 

Missionaries  have  made  their  movable  home  with  the 
roving  tribe  and  they  have  dwelt  in  cities  with  men  of 
settled  habitations.  Their  labor  has  always  been  to  lift  up 
the  poor  and  the  degraded  from  the  dust  and  the  dunghill 
into  bright  homes  and  habitations  of  order  and  purity  and 
peace.  When  circumstances  required  they  have  lived 
as  they  could  for  a  time,  to  get  nearest  to  the  people 
whom  they  were  seeking  to  save.     The  rounded  kraal  of  the 


284  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Zulu,  the  cave  house  of  Shensi,  the  abandoned  temple  of 
Buddha,  the  ice  cabin  of  Greenland  and  Labrador,  the  mud- 
walled  dwellings  of  Lebanon  and  Syria,  the  empty  tomb  of 
the  Nile,  the  deserted  palace  of  Indian  princes,  the  marble 
courts  of  the  Turkish  pasha,  the  paper-partitioned  apart- 
ments of  Japan,  the  common  shelter  for  men  and  cattle  in 
Armenia,  and  the  underground  hiding  from  the  heat  in 
Mosul  and  Bagdad,  have  all  been  taken  for  resting  places  by 
missionaries  in  our  day  ;  they  have  been  brightened  with 
Christian  hope  and  blessed  with  Christian  prayer  and  praise. 
Wherever  missionaries  have  gone,  the  most  ignorant  and 
degraded  people  have  been  inspired  to  build  better  homes 
for  themselves  and  provide  better  things  for  their  children. 
When  the  cleansing  power  of  the  divine  Word  has  come 
upon  the  spirit,  it  has  made  the  people  wash  away  the  filthi- 
ness  of  the  flesh,  clothe  themselves  in  clean  and  becoming 
garments,  put  away  all  envy  and  evil  communication  out  of 
their  mouths,  and  dwell  together  like  brethren  in  peace  and 
unity.  Our  brethren  living  among  the  heathen  have  endured 
their  rude  manners,  their  vile  habits,  and  gross  speech  with- 
out sending  home  pitiful  lamentations  for  the  loss  of  the 
delights  of  civilization  and  the  sympathy  of  cultivated 
society.  Every  day  they  have  been  wearied  and  sickened 
by  the  sight  and  sound  and  smell  of  things  that  cannot  be 
named  in  decent  speech.  Every  day  their  spirits  have  been 
stirred  within  them,  as  was  Paul's  at  Athens,  by  seeing  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  about  them  wholly  given  to  idola- 
try. They  say  they  could  not  live  and  breathe  in  the  foul 
and  reeking  atmosphere  of  heathenism,  if  they  did  not  feel 
that  they  were  doing  something  to  scatter  the  darkness  and 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE.  285 

bring  in  the  healthful  and  purifying  light  of  day.  Christian 
women,  educated  in  cur  country,  with  all  the  sensitiveness 
of  the  most  refined  and  cultivated  society,  go  through  the 
streets  of  heathen  cities  every  day,  seeing  the  unutterable 
abominations  of  the  people,  and  yet  not  giving  way  to 
nervous  prostration,  not  crying  out  with  wild  exclamations  of 
disgust  and  horror,  maintaining  a  firm,  serene,  well-balanced 
mind,  and  doing  all  that  as  a  life  work,  asking  no  release 
and  only  glad  to  live  long  in  the  land  for  whose  redemption 
they  have  given  themselves  at  the  call  of  the  Master. 

With  all  the  depressing  influences  that  weigh  down  the 
Christian  exiles  in  the  strange  land,  they  hold  the  post  of 
duty  which  has  been  assigned  them  by  the  Prince  and  Cap- 
tain of  salvation.  They  keep  the  fire  of  faith  burning  in 
their  hearts  and  they  are  not  prone  to  sjoeak  words  of  dis- 
couragement and  despondency.  I  have  met  personally  with 
more  than  seven  hundred  of  them  in  the  field,  and  they 
told  me  their  trials  and  conflicts  with  the  utmost  frankness, 
when  I  asked  them  to  do  so,  but  not  one  of  them  ever 
spoke  as  if  laboring  in  support  of  a  hopeless  cause,  not  one 
of  them  expressed  a  desire  to  be  released  and  called  home. 
With  a  debilitating  climate  to  impair  their  energy  and  the 
deep  shadow  of  heathenism  to  depress  their  spirits,  they 
do  much  hard  work  and  they  only  cry  for  help  and  oppor- 
tunity to  do  more.  They  have  mastered  difficult  languages 
and  found  their  way  into  the  inner  thought  and  life  of  the 
people  that  speak  them.  The  natives  of  far  distant  lands 
hear  the  missionary  tell,  every  man  in  his  own  tongue 
wherein  he  was  born,  the  wonderful  works  of  God.  By 
reason  of  the  intelligent  and  persevering  labor  of  missiona- 


286  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

ries,  the  simple  story  of  the  cross  is  told  to-day  in  twenty 
times  as  many  languages  as  were  heard  in  Jerusalem  on  the 
Day  of  Pentecost.  Sometimes  the  stranger  from  beyond 
the  sea  compels  the  natives  to  confess  that  he  speaks  their 
language  better  than  themselves.  Many  times  the  mission- 
ary, whose  field  of  labor  has  been  assigned  him  among 
debased  and  savage  men,  has  caught  words  and  sounds  from 
the  lips  of  the  living,  and  made  grammars  and  dictionaries 
and  the  whole  apparatus  of  education  in  a  language  which 
never  before  had  been  reduced  to  writing.  In  copious  and 
cultivated  languages,  like  the  Arabic,  the  missionary  has 
become  a  master  of  higher  authority  for  correct  usage  than 
natives  who  have  made  verbal  criticism  the  pride  of  their 
life.  In  the  most  difficult  and  enigmatical  languages,  like 
the  Chinese,  the  missionary  has  made  dictionaries  that 
cause  the  surprise  and  command  the  homage  of  profes- 
sional scholars  who  have  studied  the  classics  of  their 
native  tongue  seventy  years. 

The  best  book  as  yet  written  on  that  still  dark  and  diffi- 
cult subject,  China  and  the  Chinese,  was  written  by  a  mis- 
sionary. The  only  commentary  on  the  Koran  that  I  have 
ever  seen,  the  best  manual  of  original  authorities  on 
Buddhism,  the  best  and  almost  the  only  translation  of  the 
Chinese  classics,  are  the  work  of  missionaries.  The  best 
record  of  the  original  customs  of  Polynesia  and  Madagascar, 
the  thirty  thousand  volumes  of  scientific  books  sold  in 
China  every  year,  are  the  work  of  missionaries.  The  one 
lifelong  observer  of  the  action  and  eruptions  of  volcanoes ; 
the  indefatigable  collectors  of  historic  records  and  relics 
in  archaeology  ;  physicians  who  have  had  the  largest  experi- 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE.  287 

ence  in  the  treatment  of  all  manner  of  diseases;  the  most 
reliable  witnesses  to  the  religious  belief  and  practice  of  all 
nations ;  the  most  careful  observers  of  the  manner*  and 
customs  of  people  in  the  least  frequented  parts  of  the  earth ; 
the  best  authorities  in  regard  to  the  plants  that  grow  and 
the  animals  that  live  and  the  minerals  that  are  found  and 
the  phenomena  of  nature  that  attract  attention  in  the  most 
distant  quarters  of  the  globe,  —  are  missionaries.  The 
men  who  do  most  to  enrich  science  and  promote  education 
and  enlarge  the  area  of  human  knowledge,  as  an  indirect 
result  of  their  life's  labor,  are  missionaries. 

The  writers  of  universal  geographies  ;  the  compilers  of 
world-wide  statistics;  the  students  of  comparative  philology  ; 
the  popular  delineators  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  all 
nations  ;  the  speculators  in  comparative  mythology  and  reli- 
gion ;  the  collectors  of  specimens  of  rude  art  and  imple- 
ments of  a  supposed  age  of  stone  or  bronze, — all  depend, 
upon  missionaries  for  the  materials  which  they  work  upon, 
the  warp  and  the  woof  of  the  theories  which  they  spin.  In 
the  cloistered  halls  of  learning,  in  the  cabinets  and  labora- 
tories of  colleges,  in  the  quiet  studies  of  private  life,  ingen- 
ious speculators  write  books  and  propose  theories,  for  which 
they  get  great  fame  as  authors  and  philosophers,  and  yet 
they  are  indebted  for  the  most  important  facts  they  use  ta 
the  incidental  observations  of  men  who  are  preaching  the 
gospel  in  the  jungles  of  India,  the  mud  cabins  of  China, 
or  under  the  shadow  of  palms  on  the  isles  of  the  sea. 

Many  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  which  mission- 
aries make  to  general  knowledge  are  gathered  by  them  as 
a  mere  diversion  outside  of   the  one  supreme  purpose  for 


288  MORNING  LIGIir  IN  AfANY  LANDS. 

which  they  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  offer  the  labor 
of  their  lives  as  a  willing  sacrifice  for  the  good  of  their 
fellovr-men.  One  good  man,  at  whose  house  I  was  hospi- 
tably entertained,  and  with  whom  I  rode  through  the  streets 
of  a  Chinese  city  on  a  wheelbarrow  of  his  own  construction, 
had  done  so  much  to  teach  the  people  about  him  better 
modes  of  managing  their  grounds  and  crops  that  he  was 
actually  afraid  that  he  might  be  remembered  more  as  a 
gardener  and  a  fruit  grower  than  as  a  missionary  sent  out 
to  plant  the  tree  of  life  beside  all  waters  and  over  all  hills 
and  plains  in  the  Central  Flowery  Kingdom  of  the  East. 

I  met  a  missionary  physician  and  surgeon  who,  I  was  told, 
could  receive  fifty  thousand  dollars  of  professional  fees  for 
a  year's  practice  in  London  or  New  York,  and  yet  he  was 
giving  himself,  with  all  his  skill  and  experience,  to  the 
blind  and  the  palsied,  the  lame  and  the  leprous,  in  Canton, 
for  the  bare  means  of  living  and  the  love  of  doing  good  to 
his  afflicted  fellow-men.  I  had  many  conversations  with  an- 
other missionary  physician  who  had  fifty  thousand  patients 
pass  under  his  eye  in  a  year,  and  who  yet  in  the  night  and 
morning  hours,  when  off  duty  in  medical  practice,  mastered 
a  very  difficult  language,  translated  the  Bible  for  forty  mil- 
lions of  people  to  read,  and  made  a  dictionary  which  for 
them  is  what  Webster  or  Worcester  is  for  us.  I  met 
another  missionary  physician  who  translated  the  Bible  into 
the  refined  and  copious  language  of  the  Arabs,  and  so  com- 
pletely mastered  the  tongue  that  once  he  was  in  peril  of 
his  life  because  a  band  of  roving  and  murdering  Druses 
took  him  to  be  a  native  and,  as  proof,  insisted  that  no  for- 
eigner could  speak  Arabic  as  correctly  as  he  did.     I   know 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE.  289 

another  missionary  physician  who  made  a  concordance  of 
the  Bible  in  the  same  language,  and  who  mingled  so  much 
physical  force  and  hardihood  with  his  scholarly  habits  that 
he  would  mount  his  wild  horse  in  the  morning,  ride  over 
the  steep  and  slippery  paths  of  the  mountains  the  distance 
of  two  ordinary  days'  journey,  perform  a  critical  surgical 
operation,  and  be  back  at  sunset  of  the  same  day  to  sleep 
in  his  own  house  for  the  night. 

I  have  met  missionaries  in  the  foreign  field  who  had  a 
large  acquaintance  with  history,  science,  and  general  litera- 
ture, and  who  spoke  eight  or  ten  languages,  sometimes  using 
them  all  the  same  day,  preaching,  as  one  did,  in  twelve  dif- 
ferent languages  in  one  week,  and  yet  such  scholarly  men 
making  it  the  one  chief  aim  of  their  life  to  teach  the  sim- 
plest truths  of  the  gospel  to  men  that  know  them  not.  A 
distinguished  comparative  anatomist  went  all  the  way  from 
England  to  Egypt  to  study  the  habits  of  poisonous  serpents 
and  to  satisfy  himself  whether  the  profession  of  the  snake- 
charmer  were  an  imposition  or  a  reality.  He  did  not  know 
the  language  of  the  people  nor  the  subtle  ways  of  the 
charmers.  He  could  not  take  the  first  step  in  his  pro- 
posed investigations  without  the  help  of  the  missionary. 
He  secured  the  desired  assistance  from  one  whom  I  have 
seen  going  on  his  rounds  of  daily  service  as  a  missionary 
physician  in  Cairo.  The  kind  doctor  made  all  needed 
arrangements,  got  the  snakes  and  the  charmers  to  appear 
on  exhibition,  and  stood  by  to  ask  questions  and  interpret 
answers.  The  time  came  for  the  professor  to  return  to 
London.  He  had  formed  no  theory  of  snake-charming  and 
he  was  obliged  to  go,  begging  the  missionary  to  continue 


290 


MOKXLVG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


the  observations  and  send  him  the  result.  In  the  course  of 
time  the  learned  professor  appeared  before  the  Philosophical 
Society  with  an  acute  and  exhaustive  article  on  snake-charm- 
ine:,  and  he  received  much  honor  and  admiration  for  the 
manner  in  which  he  handled  the  difficult  and  delicate  sub- 
ject, and,  in  the  meantime,  the  faithful  missionary,  who  sup- 
plied the  professor  with  all  his  material,  was  ministering  to 
the  sore-eyed  children  and  the  naked  fellahin  of  Cairo,  and 
did  not  hear  the  faintest  echo  of  the  applause  which  greeted 
the  professor's  essay  in  London. 

An  American  ambassador  made  a  famous  treaty  with 
China,  and  he  gained  so  high  a  reputation  as  a  diplomatist 
that  the  Chinese  government  sent  him  to  all  the  courts  of 
Europe  to  negotiate  treaties  for  them  ;  and  yet  every  article 
in  the  American  treaty  which  gave  it  any  special  fitness  or 
value,  and  every  negotiation  which  gave  the  ambassador  any 
reputation,  was  the  work  or  the  suggestion  of  an  American 
missionary  who  had  made  the  language  and  the  people  of 
China  a  laborious  and  conscientious  study  for  years,  and 
who  did  not  appear  as  a  member  of  the  embassy  at  all. 
The  ambassador  was  a  brilliant  talker,  a  highly-gifted  and 
accomplished  man,  but  he  knew  nothing  especial  about 
China,  the  government,  the  people,  or  the  country.  He 
had  no  especial  fitness  to  make  his  way  through  all  the 
intricate  mazes  and  contradictions  of  Chinese  ignorance 
and  culture,  cunning  and  simplicity,  to  the  attainment  of 
his  object.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  help  of  the  untitled 
and  unofficial  missionary,  he  would  have  been  obliged  to 
come  home  and  confess  that  he  had  gone  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth  on  a  fool's  errand  and  had  come  back  no  wiser 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE.  29  I 

than  he  went.  The  missionary  does  not  indeed  ask  for 
titles  or  honors  from  the  government  of  any  country,  but 
it  is  fair  and  becoming  that  the  world  should  know  how 
much  the  good  understanding  between  nations  is  due  to  his 
knowledge  of  men  and  his  sagacity  in  difficult  negotiations. 
Such  are  some  of  the  outside  and  incidental  labors  of 
missionaries  in  the  various  countries  where  they  make  their 
home.  In  the  direct  fulfillment  of  their  great  and  divine 
commission  their  labors  have  been  much  more  abundant 
and  effective.  They  have  taught  the  heathen  to  observe  all 
things  whatsoever  Christ  commanded.  They  have  preached 
the  divine  Word  wherever  they  could  find  standing  room  or 
anybody  to  listen  —  in  the  jungle,  under  the  shade  of  the 
palm  and  the  banyan,  at  the  door  of  the  tent,  in  the  open 
street,  in  the  bazars,  amid  crowds  of  attendants  on  festivals, 
in  front  of  shrines  and  tombs,  as  well  as  in  the  chapel,  the 
schoolhouse,  and  the  church.  They  have  opened  readings 
rooms  and  gathered  libraries,  organized  the  church  and  the 
Sunday-school,  and  adopted  all  our  various  social  gatherings 
of  people  for  worship  and  instruction  so  far  as  they  have 
been  adapted  to  the  time,  place,  and  people.  They  have 
not  tried  to  make  Western  people  out  of  Eastern,  nor  to  put 
our  dress  and  manners  upon  people  who  would  only  look  the 
worse  for  wearing  either.  But  they  have  been  ingenious  and 
inventive  in  finding  out  the  best  ways  of  securing  access  for 
the  truth  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  high-caste  and  low- 
caste,  Brahmin  and  Buddhist,  Armenian  and  Moslem,  Con- 
fucian and  Taoist.  They  have  established  schools  and 
colleges  and  theological  seminaries  and  taught  all  branches 
of  science  and  literature  that  are  known  in  western  nations. 


292  MORNING   TJGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

They  have  educated  native  preachers  and  catcchists,  trained 
Bible  and  Zenana  women  to  the  delicate  and  difficult  work 
of  going  from  house  to  house  promoting  peace  and  teaching 
the  words  of  life  ;  they  have  found  out  how  to  live  and 
work  and  dress  in  all  extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  and  they 
have  won  the  confidence  of  people  who  gave  them  no  wel- 
come at  their  coming  and  who  only  looked  on  them  with 
distrust  and  suspicion.  They  have  been  loved  and  revered 
and  almost  worshiped  by  the  very  people  by  whom,  at  their 
first  coming  among  them,  they  were  reviled  and  ridiculed 
and  stoned.  They  have  grown  wise  by  experience,  coura- 
geous by  exposure  to  peril,  patient  by  long  waiting  for  the 
fruit  of  their  labor,  and  they  have  been  eyewitnesses  to  the 
fitness  and  the  divine  power  of  the  Word  which  they  preach. 
They  have  seen  men  of  the  grossest  minds  and  darkest 
hearts  and  most  implacable  dispositions  renewed  in  spirit, 
made  gentle  and  forgiving  towards  each  other,  and  started 
upon  a  true  and  noble  life.  Upon  the  minds  of  thousands 
and  millions  who  are  not  thus  converted  the  missionaries 
have  made  the  impression  that  they  preach  and  practice  a 
religion  of  purity  and  of  love,  and  that  it  is  destined  to 
displace  all  other  religions  and  to  gather  all  nations  into 
one  faith  and  one  family. 

Our  brethren  who  have  gone  forth  into  the  great  world 
field,  and  are  gathering  harvests  to  eternal  life,  desire  our 
sympathy  and  they  deserve  our  confidence :  the  commission 
which  they  bear  is  from  the  highest  source  and  it  ought  to 
receive  our  most  cordial  and  generous  support.  Every  day, 
in  every  Christian  home  throughout  our  land,  let  prayer  be 
offered  that  our  missionaries  may  be  endued  with  all  wisdom 


WORK  ALREADY  DONE. 


293 


and  prudence,  with  the  spirit  of  counsel  and  of  might  for 
their  great  work,  and  that  they  may  be  enriched  with  all 
utterance  and  all  knowledge,  and  that  their  lips  may  be 
touched  with  fire  from  the  heavenly  altar  to  tell  the  wonders 
of  God's  redeeming  love  in  languages  that  never  bore  the 
message  and  to  people  that  never  heard  the  story.  In 
every  private  home,  in  every  public  service  of.  the  sanc- 
tuary, in  all  believing  hearts,  let  continual  prayer  be  offered 
that  our  brethren  in  the  field  may  be  clear  and  conscientious 
in  their  great  office  as  ambassadors  of  the  Most  High,  that 
they  may  be  clothed  with  the  meekness  of  saints  and  the 
majesty  of  kings,  that  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God  will  pour 
into  their  hearts  the  courage  of  heroes  and  the  faith  of 
martyrs,  and  so  enable  them  to  stand  against  the  princi- 
palities and  powers  of  darkness,  and  having  done  all  to 
stand,  until  the  Church,  triumphant  in  the  Redeemer's 
might,  shall  win  the  well-fought  day. 

The  great  Christian  campaign  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world  is  now  well  begun.  There  have  been  skirmishings 
and  reconnoiterings  and  taking  of  outposts  in  many  lands  and 
all  over  the  field.  But  the  ground  has  been  well  explored, 
the  strength  of  the  enemy  ascertained,  the  weapons  of  the 
warfare  have  been  tested  ;  after  many  mistakes  and  failures, 
the  best  methods  of  attack  have  been  found  out  and  a  salu- 
tary fear  and  trembling  have  been  impressed  upon  the  foe. 
Now  is  the  time  for  a  swift  and  resistless  advance  along:  the 
whole  line.  Every  member  of  the  Christian  Church  in  every 
land  should  heed  the  call  which  comes  from  the  Captain  of 
the  host,  saying,  "Go  forward."  The  responsibility  of  those 
at   home  is  the   same  as  that  of  the  foremost  in  the  field. 


294  MORNING   LIGIir  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

We  all  serve  the  same  Master,  we  are  all  enlisted  for  the 
same  campaign,  and  we  look  for  no  rest  or  release  till  the 
end  of  the  war.  There  is  no  neutral  ground  for  noncom- 
mittal, no  half-way  covenant  between  the  church  and  the 
world.  If  we  stand  wholly  for  Christ,  his  banner  over  us 
will  always  be  light  and  love  ;  we  shall  ever  hear  his  voice 
loud  and  clear  in  the  call  to  glory  and  virtue,  to  joy  and  vic- 
tory. And  when  the  final  day  comes  and  we  all  stand  in  our 
lot  before  the  throne  great  and  high,  and  we  see  the  scar  of 
the  cross  in  the  hand  that  offers  the  crown,  we  shall  be  glad 
to  remember  that  we  have  served  in  the  ranks  of  the  sacra- 
mental host  and  have  borne  an  honorable  part  in  the  toils 
and  the  sacrifices  of  the  great  campaign. 


XIX. 

FORWARD. 


I 


F  we  take  a  wide  and  rapid  survey  of  the  great  mission- 
ary field  of  the  world,  from  the  safe  distance  of  home, 
the  impressions   which   we   receive  and  the  conclusions  to 
which  we  come  will  depend  greatly  upon  the  object  we  have 
in  view  and   the  previous  habits  of   mind   which    we  have 
been  accustomed  to  entertain.     If  we  have  never  taken  any 
personal  interest  in  the  work  itself,  and  we  pride  ourselves 
a   little  upon   our   character  as   independent   observers,   we 
shall  often  seem  to  be  standing  on  the  shore  of  a  great  and 
wide  sea,  over  which  the  night   of  ages  broods    and    thick 
clouds  of  ignorance  and  superstition  gather.     On  the  waves 
of  that  great  deep,  millions  of  mariners   wander  in   unsea- 
worthy  hulks,  without  a  compass,  a  chart,  a  pilot,  or  a  helm. 
The  storm  rages  and  the  hulks  dash  against  each  other  in 
blind    conflict    and    are   broken    in    pieces,    and    the    living 
mariners   go  down  to  their  fathomless   grave  in   the  deep. 
A  calm  comes  on,  and  the  hulks  lie  rotting  on  the  sea,  like 
the  poet's  ships  in   his  dream  of  darkness,  and  the  living 
mariners  go  down  as  before  to  their  deep  burial  beneath  the 
waves.     The   miserable   wanderers    in    the    dark   know    not 
which  way  they  are  drifting,  and  they  see  no  beacon  light 
to  warn  them   of  danger  or  to  reveal  the  safe  shore.     We 
hear  their  voices  from  afar,  lifted  up  like  the  cry  of  nations, 


295 


296  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

but  they  speak  strange  tongues,  and  we  cannot  tell  whether 
it  is  a  song  of  triumph  that  they  are  singing  or  a  dirge  of 
despair.  The  shore  at  our  feet  is  strewn  with  wreck,  and 
we  gather  up  a  gilded  idol,  an  enameled  vase,  a  piece  of 
embroidered  silk,  a  delicate  cutting  in  ivory  or  stone,  and  we 
set  them  in  our  chambers  and  parlors  and  museums  as  curios 
of  men  who  live  far  off,  work  in  the  dark,  and  never  know 
what  it  is  to  walk  in  the  light  of  life.  We  pity  them,  per- 
haps sometimes  we  pray  for  them,  but  not  with  a  hope. 
They  are  so  far  off  that  we  cannot  go  to  them  ;  they  are  so 
many  that  we  cannot  count  them  ;  they  are  wandering  in 
such  deep  darkness  that  we  should  be  lost  ourselves  in  the 
endeavor  to  find  them  out  and  show  them  the  way  of  peace. 
If  there  were  but  one  or  a  hundred,  we  could  send  lifeboats 
and  save  them.  But  what  can  we  do  for  millions.?  If  they 
were  within  hearing  and  they  understood  our  tongue,  we 
could  cry  aloud  and  tell  them  which  way  to  steer  to  find  the 
safe  harbor.  But  they  are  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe 
and  they  speak  other  tongues  and  our  words  would  have  no 
more  meaning  to  them  than  the  sea  bird's  cry  or  the  wail  of 
the  storm. 

So  when  we  offer  our  prayer,  in  the  distance,  for  the 
rescue  of  benighted  millions  from  the  bondage  of  ignorance 
and  superstition,  we  are  afraid  to  believe  that  it  will  ever  be 
answered.  When  we  give  our  money  for  the  same  object, 
we  never  expect  to  live  the  many  days  which  must  pass 
before  it  will  come  again  with  blessings  on  our  head.  Such 
is  apt  to  be  the  home  view  of  many  who  look  out  upon  the 
great  missionary  field  of  the  world  and  wait  for  some  new 
revelation  of  power  from   on  high   to  scatter  the  clouds  of 


FORWARD.  297 

ignorance  and  superstition  and  fill  the  habitations  of  the 
heathen  with  light.  Some  even  are  so  oppressed  with  the 
sad  condition  of  milHons  of  the  human  family,  as  seen  from 
afar,  that  they  feel  obliged  to  resort  to  vague  theories  and 
blind  conjectures  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man  in 
making  such  a  world  and  keeping  it  alive  so  long.  When 
appealed  to  for  help  in  sending  the  light  of  truth  into  the 
dark  places  of  the  earth,  they  are  inclined  to  answer,  as  did 
the  devout  king  of  Spain,  whose  subjects  petitioned  him  for 
permission  to  unite  two  rivers  by  a  canal,  and  who  replied 
that  if  God  almighty  had  ever  designed  those  rivers  to  be 
connected  he  would  have  made  the  canal  himself,  and  it 
would  be  presumptuous  for  man  to  interfere  with  the  ways 
of  divine  providence. 

But  suppose  we  lay  aside  all  our  theories  and  conjectures 
and  go  out  into  the  field  itself  and  join  hands,  for  a 
while,  with  the  toilers  in  the  heat  of  the  day  and  the  damp 
of  the  night.  We  set  our  shoulders  to  the  burdens  which 
they  bear,  and  we  come  so  near  to  them  that  we  feel  the 
beating  of  their  hearts  and  catch  the  inspiration  of  the 
lives  of  toil  and  sacrifice  which  they  lead.  Then  the  dark- 
ness about  us  will  at  first  seem  deeper  than  it  did  when  we 
stood  afar  off  and  looked  on  ;  the  state  of  the  heathen  will 
appear  more  pitiable  than  we  ever  thought  it  to  be  ;  but 
when  once  in  the  field,  keeping  company  with  the  reapers 
and  trying  to  share  a  Httle  in  their  work,  we  no  longer  look 
about  us  with  vague  curiosity  or  silent  wonder  or  helpless 
despair.  We  find  now  that  the  great  sea,  which  looked  so 
dark  in  the  distance,  is  studded  here  and  there  with  islands 
of  the  blessed,  from  which  go  up  songs  of  faith  and  hope, 


298  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

% 

such  as  we  sing  in  the  home  land.  The  howhng  wilderness 
of  the  shore  has  many  gardens  of  God,  watered  from  the 
fountains  of  life  and  shaded  with  palms  of  victory.  The 
strange  tongues  of  heathenism  have  been  mastered  and 
made  to  speak  the  words  of  eternal  life  and  to  sing  the 
songs  of  triumph  over  death.  The  hidden  places  of  dark- 
ness have  been  searched  by  the  light  of  truth,  and  the  habi- 
tations of  cruelty  have  been  consecrated  with  words  of  peace 
and  deeds  of  kindness.  Among  the  wreckage  of  immortal 
hopes  which  we  thought  were  utter  ruin,  we  find  gems  fit  to 
shine  in  the  crown  of  the  King  of  kings. 

All  over  th^  dark  immensity  of  heathenism  we  see,  on 
closer  inspection,  light  bearers,  heralds  of  hope  and  sal- 
vation. Some  are  out  on  the  sea  and  some  are  lining  the 
shore  with  beacons.  Some  are  climbing  wild  mountains, 
some  are  crossing  burning  wastes,  some  are  making  their 
way  through  jungles  and  lowlands  where  the  fever  poison 
fills  the  air,  some  are  in  the  narrow  and  filthy  streets  of 
crowded  cities  or  in  the  mud  cabins  of  scattered  villages, 
some  are  ascending  mighty  rivers  and  exploring  the  deso- 
lations of  many  generations.  All  are  intent  upon  one 
object,  all  are  working  in  the  manner  and  with  the  means 
that  suit  them  best,  with  the  one  desire  to  fill  the  dark 
places  of  the  earth  with  light.  All  are  looking  for  wan- 
derers to  bring  them  home  to  their  Father.  On  all  the 
continents  of  the  earth  and  all  the  great  islands  of  the  sea, 
in  the  midst  of  the  swarming  population  of  great  cities  and 
in  the  waste  places  of  the  wilderness,  they  are  seeking  to 
save  men  from  the  wretched  life  and  the  hopeless  death 
into  which  heathenism  has  been  weis:hin«:  down  the  nations 


FOR  WARD. 


299 


of  the  East  for  ages.  Living,  immortal  men,  by  millions,  are 
walking  in  darkness,  not  knowing  at  what  they  stumble, 
and  we  have  sent  out,  here  and  there,  a  messenger  to  show 
them  the  path  of  life,  to  bring  them  home  to  habitations 
of  peace,  to  the  blessed  land  of  rest  and  security  forever- 
more. 

In  India  the  Brahmins  say  that  the  Christians  have  flung 
their  net  over  the  whole  land  from  the  northern  mountains 
to  the  most  southern  cape.  They  compare  their  own  tra- 
ditions and  customs  to  a  tank  from  which  the  water  is 
always  running  out  and  none  is  coming  in.  In  Japan  the 
people  have  awaked  from  the  long  sleep  of  ages  and  are 
groping  about  bewildered  and  half  blinded  by  the  sudden 
coming  of  the  new  day.  In  China,  the  darkest  and  most 
hopeless  of  all  the  great  lands  of  the  East,  a  thousand 
messengers  are  going  to  and  fro,  publishing  glad  tidings 
of  liberty  from  long  bondage,  holding  up  the  light  to  show 
the  way  of  peace  and  salvation  to  three  hundred  millions 
who  are  blindly  following  the  steps  of  their  ancestors  in 
wandering  mazes  lost.  Our  brethren  have  led  thousands 
into  the  safe  path,  but  there  are  millions  more  that  have 
not  seen  the  light  or  heard  the  call.  Every  breeze  from 
the  ocean  comes  to  us  freighted  with  the  cry  of  our  mes- 
sengers, saying,  "Come  over  and  help  us.  The  heathen  are 
multiplying  faster  than  we  can  save  them.  We  must  set 
a  light  on  every  hilltop,  we  must  search  the  lanes  and 
alleys  of  every  city  with  lighted  candles,  we  must  plunge 
into  the  great  currents  of  humanity  which  are  flowing 
along  all  the  coasts  and  up  and  down  all  the  mighty  rivers 
and  over  the  vast  plains  of  this  great  eastern    world.     We 


300  MOJiNfjVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

must  cry  aloud  or  we  shall  not  be  heard  above  the  millions 
of  voices  which  proclaim  the  blind  gods  of  heathenism  and 
promise  the  base  indulgence  of  lust  and  passion." 

It  helps  us  very  much  in  deciding  how  that  call  should 
be  answered  when  we  go  over  to  the  other  side  and  spend 
a  year  with  the  good  soldiers  of  Christ  who  are  lifting  up 
the  standard  of  the  cross  in  the  hard  places  of  the  heathen 
field.  The  Christian  traveler,  on  his  journey  of  observation, 
traverses  the  great  and  populous  lands  of  the  East,  every- 
where meeting  multitudes  of  people,  multitudes  without 
number.  He  crosses  vast  plains  where  a  hundred  villages 
are  embraced  in  a  single  glance  of  the  eye.  He  ascends 
mighty  rivers  that  bear  the  food  of  millions  in  their  waters. 
He  passes  over  mountains  that  have  separated  hostile  tribes 
and  races  for  ages.  He  wonders  at  the  invisible  wall  of 
caste  which  has  built  up  a  barrier  of  division  between 
people  of  the  same  race  as  high  as  heaven  and  as  deep  as 
the  grave.  He  makes  his  way  through  the  crowded  streets 
of  great  cities,  everywhere  looking  into  the  faces  of  the 
poor,  the  ignorant,  and  the  burdened,  and  feeling  as  if  it 
would  break  his  heart  to  think  of  their  hard  and  hopeless 
lot  in  this  world  and  the  darker  prospect  before  them  for 
the  world  to  come.  Then  he  thinks  of  millions  at  case 
in  the  home  land,  and  more  millions  of  money  in  their 
hands  waiting  to  be  put  to  good  service  in  God's  great  field 
of  the  world.  Then  he  feels  that  he  must  come  back 
to  his  own  country  and  lift  up  his  voice  in  one  continual 
cry  in  behalf  of  the  millions  that  are  wandering  in  the 
darkness  of  heathenism  without  a  guide,  and  living  without 
hope  in  the  habitations  of  cruelty. 


FORWARD.  301 

And  what  is  the  most  important  thing  which  such  a 
returned  traveler  from  the  eastern  lands  can  say  to  the 
Christians  in  his  own  country  ?  What  is  the  one  thing 
which  must  needs  be  done  in  order  to  put  the  great  mis- 
sionary enterprise  in  its  right  place  before  the  Church  and 
before  the  world  ?  What  one  thing  done  will  cause  all 
branches  of  the  one  universal  Church  of  Christ  to  advance 
as  an  exceeding  great  army,  a  mighty  and  ever-victorious 
host,  enrolled  and  commissioned  by  the  living  God  for  the 
conquest  of  the  world  ? 

The  first  thing  needed  is  a  full,  honest,  entire,  universal 
acceptance  by  the  Church  of  the  divine  commission  to  make 
disciples  of  all  nations.  As  a  new  starting  point  there 
must  be  an  open,  hearty,  and  habitual  declaration  on  the 
part  of  all  Christians  of  every  denomination  that  they,  by 
virtue  of  their  profession  as  Christians,  are  committed  to 
the  great  enterprise,  and  are  determined,  at  whatever  cost 
of  men  and  money,  effort  and  sacrifice,  to  send  recruits, 
to  fill  up  the  vacant  ranks  in  the  field,  to  sustain  work 
already  begun,  and  to  press  on  with  united  front  to  the 
conquest  of  the  world.  The  Church,  as  a  whole,  and  all 
individual  members  must  accept  the  charge  which  Christ 
gave  his  disciples  as  fully  and  personally  as  it  is  expected 
that  missionaries  in  foreign  lands  will  accept  and  act  upon 
its  high  demands.  It  must  become  a  thing  settled,  known, 
and  accepted  by  the  world  at  large,  that  the  Church  is 
God's  host  enlisted  and  enrolled  for  perpetual  war  against 
the  powers  of  darkness,  and  that  its  great  interest  and  plan 
of  campaign  must  embrace  all  lands,  all  nations.  The  teach- 
ing, the  efforts,  the  gifts,  the  daily  life  of  Christians  in  this 


302  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

land  should  say  continually  to  the  world,  "  It  is  our  special 
commission  from  Christ  to  make  known  his  Gospel  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  and  to  persuade  all  nations  to  acknowl- 
edge him  as  Saviour  and  King.  We  will  not  rest,  we  will 
not  relax  effort,  we  will  not  withhold  gifts,  we  will  not 
shrink  from  sacrifice  so  long  as  there  is  one  pcojile  still  to 
be  evangelized,  one  remote  corner  of  the  earth  to  be  visited 
with  the  gospel  light."  Every  individual  Christian  coming 
into  the  Church  by  profession  of  faith  in  Christ  must  be 
made  to  understand,  at  the  very  outset,  that  he  is  enlisted 
in  the  ranks  of  an  exceeding  great  army  whose  divine  com- 
mission and  supreme  purpose  can  be  accomplished  only  by 
the  conquest  of  the  whole  world  for  Christ. 

We  have  been  saying  something  like  that  for  a  long  time. 
We  have  sung  it  in  our  hymns,  repeated  it  in  our  prayers, 
adopted  it  in  resolutions,  preached  it  in  sermons,  taught  it 
in  our  Sabbath-schools,  and  commended  it  in  our  confer- 
ences ;  but  the  trouble,  as  the  case  now  stands  before  the 
world,  is  this  :  the  outside  world  does  not  fully  believe  in 
the  sincerity  of  the  Church,  the  strong,  persistent,  well- 
considered  purpose  of  the  Church  to  fulfill  its  divine  com- 
mission at  whatever  cost  of  toil  and  men  and  money,  and 
with  the  least  possible  delay.  The  world  is  not  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  the  Church  is  possessed  and  carried  away 
with  this  sacred  and  divine  ambition  which  can  rest  with 
nothing  short  of  the  spiritual  conquest  of  all  nations  to 
Christ.  The  Church  does  not  fully  believe  that,  as  Christ 
was  sent  into  the  world  for  the  redemption  of  the  nations, 
so  all  who  follow  him  are  called  to  take  up  his  work  and 
carry  it   on   to  the  end,  and  that  the  evidence    of   sincere 


FORWARD.  303 

discipleship  is  the  personal  acceptance  of  that  divine  com- 
mission from  the  Master. 

The  Church,  to  be  true  to  itself  and  to  Him  whose  name 
it  bears,  must  fling  out  that  high  and  glorious  proclamation 
in  the  morning  light  of  every  land,  in  the  native  speech  of 
every  people,  ever  saying  by  deed  and  word,  "  We  are  fully 
committed  to  this  command  of  Christ,  whom  we  follow  as 
the  Prince  and  Captain  of  salvation.  We  will  never  lay 
down  the  weapons  of  our  spiritual  warfare  until  the  final 
victory  is  gained  and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  have 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  his  Christ.  We 
wish  it  to  be  understood  that  we  stand  committed  to  this 
proclamation,  and  wherever  we  set  up  the  standard  of  the 
cross  there  we  have  come  to  stay  and  to  conquer.  We 
have  provided  no  means  of  retreat,  we  have  no  armor  for 
the  defense  of  those  whose  face  is  turned  from  the  foe; 
in  all  our  hymns  we  have  no  song  fit  for  the  flying  and  the 
vanquished  to  sing.  The  march  of  God's  host  is  onward, 
forever  onward ! " 

The  world  must  be  made  to  hear  on  all  occasions  such 
high  and  clear  proclamation  of  the  mission  of  the  Church,. 
and  the  world  must  be  impressed  with  the  belief  that  the 
Church  will  make  good  every  promise  in  the  proclamation. 
The  world  must  be  made  to  know  and  to  believe  that  Chris- 
tians, by  virtue  of  their  profession  as  followers  of  Christ,  are 
bound  to  go  wherever  he  leads  the  way,  and  are  fully  m 
sympathy  with  all  his  plans  and  desires  for  the  salvation 
of  men.  Whenever  a  band  of  Christians  meet  in  confer- 
ence to  inquire,  discuss,  deliberate,  the  impression  must 
be  made  outside  that  they  are  supremely  interested  in  just 


304 


MORNING  LIGHT  IX  MAXV  LANDS. 


one  question  :  How  shall  men  be  recovered  from  the  power 
of  sin  and  death  ?  How  can  the  reign  of  righteousness 
and  peace  be  estabhshed  among  all  nations  and  over  all  the 
earth  ?  How  can  the  long,  dark  reign  of  ignorance  and 
superstition  and  wrong  give  place  to  truth  and  purity  and 
love  ?  It  must  be  made  to  appear  on  the  face  of  all  pro- 
ceedings of  Christian  assemblies,  in  the  tone  and  spirit  of 
all  preaching  and  prayer  and  exhortation,  that  all  Christians 
are  enlisted  under  Christ  to  do  his  bidding,  go  where  he 
commands,  fulfill  his  desire  in  all  things.  They  are  ready 
to  do  whatever  he  wants  them  to  do,  wherever  their  lot 
in  life  may  be  cast.  That  is  their  intelligent  and  well-con- 
sidered estimate  of  all  that  is  best  worth  living  for.  The 
best  use  they  can  find  for  money,  time,  labor,  influence,  is 
the  use  which  best  pleases  their  Lord  and  Master.  That 
they  esteem  the  highest  aim  and  the  chief  glory  of  life. 
As  Christ  gave  himself  to  death  for  the  salvation  of  men, 
thus  testifying  his  desire  that  all  men  may  be  saved,  so  his 
followers,  actuated  by  his  mind,  moved  by  his  spirit,  will 
individually  give  themselves,  their  time,  labor,  thought,  pos- 
sessions, to  the  accomplishment  of  Christ's  one  desire  in 
respect  to  all  nations  that  they  may  be  saved. 

We  have  meetings  of  mission  bands,  missionary  societies, 
mission  conventions  and  conferences  ;  grand  resolutions  are 
passed,  eloquent  addresses,  earnest  appeals  are  made,  the 
loudest  applause  greets  the  most  earnest  and  fervid  speaker, 
reports  of  such  meetings  are  -sent  out  to  all  the  churches, 
religious  papers  comment  upon  them  with  high  approbation, 
and  much  good  is  thus  accomplished.  The  people  are 
slowly  educated  by  such  means  into  the  knowledge  of  the 


FORWARD.  305 

work  actually  going  on  in  heathen  lands  and  are  brought 
somewhat  into  sympathy  with  the  laborers  in  the  field.  But 
the  world  outside  does  not  understand  such  speeches,  votes, 
and  resolutions  to  mean  that  the  Church  is  intelligently  and 
thoroughly  in  earnest  about  fulfilling  the  divine  commission 
to  evangelize  all  nations  at  whatever  cost  and  with  the  least 
possible  delay.  After  such  conventions  the  world  does  not 
say  as  a  matter  of  course.  Now  we  are  to  see  a  grand  advance 
along  the  whole  line  of  missionary  forces  ;  now  the  offer  of 
men  and  money  for  the  work  will  be  made  as  fast  as  new 
fields  of  labor  can  be  found  and  new  calls  for  help  shall 
come  from  beyond  the  sea. 

I  cannot  call  to  remembrance  any  church  or  missionary 
convention  which  has  produced  the  impression,  beyond  all 
question,  upon  the  outside  world  that  the  attendants  upon 
the  meeting,  and  the  framers  of  the  resolutions,  and  the 
speakers  upon  the  platform,  and  the  approving  and  applaud- 
ing audience  that  filled  the  house,  thenceforth  counted 
themselves  wholly  committed,  body  and  soul  and  spirit, 
property  and  time  and  talent,  to  the  fulfillment  of  Christ's 
command,  wholly  intent  upon  doing  for  all  the  heathen  world 
what  Christ  desires  most  of  all  to  have  done.  The  world 
does  not  believe  the  Church  to  be  intelligently,  profoundly 
in  earnest,  simply  because  the  world  does  not  see,  beyond 
all  doubt  o-r  question,  the  evidences  of  entire  devotion  to  the 
fulfillment  of  Christ's  command,  "  Go  ye  and  disciple  all 
the  nations." 

Suppose  the  Church  of  God  in  this  blessed  land  of 
America,  Christians  of  all  denominations,  each  in  his  own 
way,  and  yet  all  as  one  body,  should  rise  up   with  united 


306  AJOAW/A'G  LIGHT  IN  MA.VY  LANDS. 

Strength  and  resources,  with  intdHj^^ent  and  honest  purpose, 
and  take  to  heart  the  last  great  commission  of  Christ  with 
the  firm  intent  to  fulfill  its  demands  ;  suppose  they  should 
go  on  for  one  year  devoting  all  their  material  and  spiritual 
resources  to  that  commission,  as  fully  as  a  great  people  give 
themselves  to  meet  the  awful  demands  and  sacrifices  of  war 
in  time  of  invasion,  the  world  would  feel  the  greatness  and 
the  divine  authority  of  the  missionary  enterprise  as  it  has 
never  yet  done.  Every  secular  newspaper  in  the  land  would 
be  filled  with  reports  of  that  mighty  movement  for  the 
conquest  of  the  world.  It  would  be  the  subject  of  conver- 
sation and  inquiry  and  debate  in  every  house  and  shop  and 
assembly  of  people.  Every  city  and  village  would  feel  the 
throb  of  the  millions  of  hearts  beating  with  one  sacred  and 
mighty  passion.  All  colleges,  schools,  institutions  of  learn- 
ing, would  confess  the  mighty  power  of  Christian  effort 
and  consecration.  The  doubting,  the  indifferent,  and  the 
skeptical  would  be  obliged  to  say,  "This  is  indeed  the 
finger  of  God.  We  never  saw  Christianity  on  this  fashion, 
we  never  saw  such  divine  power  given  unto  men,  before. 
These  ten  millions  of  American  Christians  have  wealth 
and  education  and  power  enough  to  carry  everything  before 
them  now  that  they  are  wholly  intent  upon  fulfilling  their 
Master's  command." 

All  Christians  admit  the  binding  force  of  the  command 
of  Christ.  All  admit  that  the  heathen  nations  are  greatly 
in  need  of  the  gospel.  All  admit  that  the  success  thus  far 
attending  faithful  efforts  gives  promise  of  greater  success 
all  around  the  world,  when  once  the  work  is  undertaken  with 
set  resolution  to  carry  it  through  to  a  triumphant  conclu- 


FORWARD.  307 

sion  with  the  least  possible  delay.  Now,  the  one  thing 
wanting  is  the  open,  honest,  outspoken  committal  of  the 
Church  to  the  evangelization  of  all  nations.  Let  the  com- 
mittal be  as  clear  and  full  and  strong  as  words  and  deeds 
can  make  it.  Let  it  be  as  unconditional  as  the  enlistment 
of  the  soldier  to  fight  for  his  country  in  the  time  of  inva- 
sion. Let  it  be  as  complete  as  the  committal  of  a  capitalist 
when  he  has  staked  all  his  property  upon  the  success  of 
some  worldly  enterprise,  and  he  will  not  allow  himself  to 
think  of  such  a  thing  as  failure.  Let  all  differences,  on  unes- 
sential matters  of  doctrine,  taste,  feeling,  form  of  worship 
and  church  organization,  give  place  to  the  one  great  working 
article  in  all  creeds  that  rest  on  Christ — personal  devotion 
to  him.  Let  old  and  young,  rich  and  poor,  business  men  and 
missionaries,  at  home  and  abroad,  put  themselves  on  the 
same  level  of  duty  and  rise  to  the  same  height  in  living 
consecration  to  Christ.  Let  it  be  openly  declared  to  the 
world,  in  this  land  of  America,  that  ten  millions  of  peo- 
ple are  determined  to  fill  the  world  with  their  doctrine  :  that 
any  one  of  them,  who  is  wanted  to  go  into  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  in  the  name  of  the  Master,  is  ready 
to  go  ;  that  any  one  who  can  do  the  best  for  the  common 
cause  by  staying  at  home  and  working  in  the  shop,  the  house, 
or  the  field,  is  ready  to  stay  and  work  with  equal  devotion  to 
the  same  cause;  that  any  one  who  has  money  can  be  relied 
upon  to  give,  any  one  who  has  strength  of  body  and  mind 
to  work  will  only  ask  where  he  is  wanted  most  and  report 
himself  at  once  on  the  post  of  duty  and  ready  for  service. 

Let  all  that,  or  anything  like  that,  become  a  fact  of  daily 
history  in  the  lives  of  ten  millions  of  Christians  in  this  land 


308  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

of  America,  and  the  world  would  feel  the  power  of  such 
consecration  and  unity  of  purpose  and  effort  as  it  has  never 
felt  it  before.  The  moral  force,  going  forth  from  the  lives 
of  so  many  millions  wholly  devoted  to  the  publication  of  the 
gospel  through  all  the  earth,  would  reach  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  great  field  ;  the  strongholds  of  heathenism 
would  totter  to  their  foundation  at  the  bare  rumor  of  the 
coming  of  such  a  mighty  host  for  the  deliverance  of  its 
enslaved  millions  from  bondage  and  darkness.  The  skeptics 
and  the  scoffers,  who  now  talk  flippantly  of  the  Bible  and 
deny  the  divine  reality  of  Christian  living,  would  not  receive 
a  moment's  attention  when  ten  millions  of  Christians  are 
going  forth,  with  tongues  of  fire  and  hearts  of  love,  to  fill 
the  world  with  the  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  way 
of  salvation  by  faith  in  him. 

The  number  of  professed  Christians  in  America  is  great 
enough ;  they  have  wealth  enough  at  their  command  to  fill 
all  the  waste  places  of  heathenism  with  laborers  to  sow 
the  seed  and  reapers  to  gather  the  harvests  of  eternal 
life.  And  this  open,  honest,  hearty  assumption  on  the  part 
of  the  Church  of  the  evangelization  of  the  world  is  both 
reasonable  and  practicable.  The  work  can  be  done  without 
exhausting  the  riches  or  impairing  the  prosperity  of  the 
people.  The  culture,  the  conversion,  the  civilization  of  all 
other  nations  will  bring  back  to  America  twofold  more 
wealth  than  is  expended  in  preaching  the  gospel  wherever 
the  heralds  of  salvation  have  not  yet  been  heard.  It  is  said 
that  for  every  dollar  expended  by  England  on  foreign  mis- 
sions ten  come  back  as  the  profit  of  trade  with  peoples 
whose  wants  have  been  created  by  the  diffusion  of  civiliza- 


FORWARD. 


;o9 


tion  and  Christianity  by  the  hands  of  missionaries.  That 
may  not  be  quite  true  yet  of  America.  But  the  time  is 
fast  coming  when  it  will  be.  Fill  all  the  dark  continent  of 
Africa  with  gospel  light,  make  every  valley  and  river  and 
plain  a  highway  for  the  ransomed  of  the  Lord,  make  every 
hilltop  blaze  with  beacons  to  show  the  path  of  life  to  wan- 
derers, and  our  own  land  will  catch  the  radiance  from  afar, 
and  the  ships  of  commerce  which  pass  between  the  conti- 
nents will  carry  exchanges  of  mutual  profit  and  congratu- 
lations of  mutual  joy.  Raise  up  the  swarming  millions  of 
India  and  China  and  Japan  from  the  ignorance  and  supersti- 
tion and  poverty  and  degradation  which  heathenism  has  put 
upon  them  for  ages,  let  all  the  people  be  clothed  and  edu- 
cated, let  them  be  gathered  in  bright  homes  and  inspired 
with  great  hopes,  let  them  be  started  upon  a  new  millennium 
of  power  and  riches  and  prosperity,  such  as  the  gospel 
brings  to  people  wherever  it  goes,  and  then  they  will 
send  back  to  Christian  lands  tenfold  more  then  they  have 
received,  and  the  whole  round  world  will  be  blessed  when 
the  dark  cloud  of  heathenism  has  melted  into  day. 

The  gospel  increases  the  wants  of  every  people  to  whom  it 
comes  with  its  message  of  light  and  liberty;  but  it  enriches 
them  at  the  same  time  by  increasing  the  supply  and  stimu- 
lating the  minds  of  all  into  new  activity  and  invention  and 
new  discoveries  of  riches  that  before  were  not  known  to 
exist.  So  the  gospel  makes  new  demands  for  effort  and 
gifts  and  sacrifices.  But  it  brings  back  to  the  heart  and 
home  of  every  giver  and  doer  ten  times  as  much  as  it  takes 
away.  When  the  Zulus  lived  in  kraals  and  bought  and  sold 
their  women  for  cattle,  they  were  worth  nothing  to  them- 


310 


MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


selves  or  the  rest  of  the  world.  But  when  they  became 
Christians,  they  wanted  houses  to  live  in,  clothes  to  wear, 
tools  to  work  with,  books  to  read,  schools  for  the  education 
of  their  children.  The  quickening  power  of  the  gospel 
made  them  feel  the  need  of  a  thousand  things  which  they 
never  thought  of  before.  The  necessity  to  labor  for  the 
satisfaction  of  new  wants  made  them  new  men,  and  brought 
them  out  into  the  great  commonwealth  of  nations,  and  made 
them  givers  as  well  as  receivers  for  the  increase  of  the 
wealth  of  the  world.  Let  the  Church  expend  upon  the 
propagation  of  peace  and  good  will  among  men  as  freely  as 
goverments  expend  upon  war,  let  Christian  people  pour  out 
wealth  for  the  diffusion  of  the  water  of  life  as  freely  as 
drinkers  expend  upon  the  liquor  which  poisons  and  destroys, 
and  there  will  be  money  enough  to  answer  every  call  and 
men  enough  to  fill  every  post.  And  the  life  of  consecra- 
tion to  Christ,  which  goes  out  in  such  gifts  and  sacrifices 
for  the  good  of  men,  is  strong,  reasonable,  and  happy.  It 
secures  the  highest  enjoyment  of  everything  the  world  has 
to  give,  and  it  uplifts  and  glorifies  all  earthly  conditions  by 
the  powers  of  the  world  to  come. 

Christ  himself  makes  a  full,  personal  acceptance  of  his 
commission  to  convert  all  nations  the  condition  and  qualifi- 
cation for  good  standing  in  his  Church.  The  moment  one 
is  voluntarily  enrolled  as  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  he  is  committed, 
in  all  honor  and  truth  and  good  conscience,  to  bear  a  part  in 
the  fulfillment  of  Christ's  great  commission.  Every  new 
candidate  is  received  only  on  condition  of  pledging  himself 
to  do  whatever  Christ  commands.  And  Christ  explicitly 
commands  his  followers  to  go  and  disciple  all  nations.     The 


FORWARD.  311 

only  reliable  evidence  of  true  discipleship  is  the  full  and 
hearty  acceptance  of  the  work  which  Christ  came  to  begin 
and  which  he  has  passed  over  into  the  hands  of  his  Church 
to  complete.  He  says  that  he  has  sent  them  into  the  world 
to  take  up  his  work  and  carry  it  on  unto  the  end.  Just  as 
truly  as  the  Father  sent  him  into  the  world  to  do  a  specific 
work,  he  sends  his  disciples  to  follow  in  his  footsteps  and 
finish  well  what  he  began.  That  will  be  only  when  all  the 
nations  and  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  see  the  salvation 
of  our  God. 

Christ  did  not  come  to  enter  upon  any  of  the  common 
fields  of  human  ambition  or  to  put  himself  forward  as  a 
competitor  for  any  of  the  riches  or  pleasures  or  glories  of 
the  earth.  He  came  only  to  seek  and  to  save  the  lost.  He 
came  to  destroy  the  kingdom  of  darkness  and  to  set  up  the 
kingdom  of  God  for  the  protection  and  enjoyment  of  all 
mankind.  He  says  that,  just  as  truly  as  he  was  sent  of  the 
Father  for  that  purpose,  he  has  sent  his  followers  into  the 
world  to  do  the  same  thing.  It  is  on  condition  that  they 
accept  his  commission  that  he  promises  to  be  with  them 
alway,  even  unto  the  end.  The  only  satisfactory  evidence 
that  we  are  his  disciples  and  belong  to  him,  and  so  can 
claim  the  fulfillment  of  his  promise,  is  the  fact  that  we 
keep  his  commandments,  we  fulfill  his  commission,  we  enter 
heartily  into  his  plan  and  desire  for  the  salvation  of  all  man- 
kind. The  only  true  church,  the  only  holy,  undivided, 
orthodox,  apostolic  church  in  the  world,  is  the  church  which 
puts  first  and  foremost  in  creed  and  practice,  in  spirit  and 
letter,  the  chosen  and  divine  work  of  Christ  in  seeking  and 
savin":  the  lost. 


3  I  2  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

This  great  Christian  enterprise,  the  conversion  of  the 
whole  world  to  one  faith,  one  law  of  right  living,  one 
brotherhood  of  duty  and  of  love,  is  the  greatest,  the  most 
inspiring,  the  most  sublime,  the  most  godlike,  that  can  call 
forth  the  efforts  or  move  the  hearts  of  men.  It  should 
stand  out,  clear  and  commanding,  in  all  preaching  of  the 
gospel,  in  all  plans  for  church  work,  in  all  training  of  young 
Christians,  in  all  Sabbath-school  teaching,  in  all  home  and 
household  religion,  in  all  public  appeals  for  the  support  of 
Christian  institutions  at  home  and  the  prosecution  of  mis- 
sionary work  among  the  heathen.  Never,  never  must  the 
Church  forget  the  Master's  word,  "The  gospel  must  first 
be  published  among  all  nations."  That  is  the  first  duty 
which  he  charges  upon  his  followers,  and  they  should  give 
themselves  no  rest  until  it  is  done.  When  the  word  of  the 
Lord  came  to  the  prophet  in  the  old  time,  and  he  withheld 
the  message  from  the  people,  it  was  in  his  heart  as  a  burn- 
ing fire  shut  up  in  his  bones  and  he  was  weary  with  for- 
bearing and  he  could  not  stay,  and  he  said,  "  Woe  is  me  if 
I  deliver  not  this  word  of  the  Lord  to  those  for  whom  it  is 
sent."  That  word  of  the  Lord  is  now  given  unto  the  whole 
Church  to  make  known  unto  the  nations.  To  all  that  hesi- 
tate and  delay,  the  command  comes  from  the  Master,  as  it 
came  to  the  recreant  prophet  in  old  time,  saying,  "  Go  into 
all  the  earth  and  preach  unto  all  the  nations  the  preaching 
that  I  bid  thee." 

No  church  can  live  and  grow  in  grace  and  power,  in  love 
and  unity,  while  standing  aloof  from  the  special  work  which 
Christ  has  given  his  Church  to  do.  No  individual  Christian 
can   come   into   the    full    enjoyment    of    life    and    liberty   in 


FOR  WARD.  3  I  3 

Christ  unless  he  takes  an  open  and  honorable  part  in  the 
fulfillment  of  the  divine  commission  to  disciple  all  nations. 
Sir  William  Hunter,  speaking  simply  as  a  master  in  sta- 
tistics and  an  intelligent  observer  of  the  world's  progress, 
says  that  he  should  consider  any  abatement  of  interest  in 
the  great  missionary  work  on  the  part  of  English  Christians 
as  a  sure  sign  of  national  decline.  In  his  opinion,  if  Eng- 
land does  not  employ  her  wealth,  her  education,  and  her 
faith  in  Christianizing  the  millions  of  the  heathen  in  India, 
the  sources  of  her  power  and  prosperity  will  dry  up  at  home. 
And  it  is  just  as  true  that  the  spiritual  life  of  the  home 
churches  in  our  own  land  will  decline  and  die,  if  they  do 
not  sustain  missionaries  on  the  ground  and  send  them  more 
men  and  money  to  advance  to  new  fields  and  greater  con- 
quests for  the  Master. 

The  only  effectual  safeguard  against  deadness  and  indif- 
ference, against  worldliness  and  materialism,  against  vain 
speculation  and  false  doctrine,  against  positive  unbelief  and 
renunciation  of  all  faith,  is  to  be  found  in  keeping  the  divine 
commission  to  disciple  the  nations  ever  before  the  Church 
and  the  world.  Give  that  its  due  place  in  all  doctrine  and 
duty,  in  all  preaching  and  praise  and  prayer,  in  all  plans 
and  organizations  for  church  work,  in  all  training  of  the 
young,  and  in  all  collections  for  the  treasury  of  the  Lord, 
and  then  there  will  be  little  danger  of  letting  down  the 
standard  of  Christian  living  and  consecration,  little  danger 
that  many  will  cease  to  hold  fast  the  form  of  sound  words  or 
drift  away  from  the  firm  anchorage  of  faith. 

It  is  especially  important  that  the  young  shall  be  im- 
pressed early  and  intelligently  with  the  greatness  and  the 


3  1  4  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

divine  authority  of  the  commission  to  disciple  the  nations. 
They  must  be  taught  to  feel  and  believe  that  the  object  for 
which  we  send  missionaries  to  India  and  China  and  Japan 
is  the  greatest,  the  most  urgent,  the  most  sacred  that  ever 
can  enlist  the  efforts  or  inspire  the  hearts  of  living  men. 
The  conquests  of  Alexander  and  Caesar  and  Napoleon,  the 
framing  of  constitutions  and  the  founding  of  states  and 
empires,  the  building  of  the  Pyramids,  the  Parthenon,  and 
the  Coliseum,  the  opening  of  new  highways  for  commerce, 
the  invention  of  new  arts,  new  discoveries  in  science  and 
new  mastery  over  the  hidden  powers  of  nature,  are  great 
and  inspiring  themes  for  the  study  of  the  youthful  mind. 
But  they  all  sink  into  insignificance  when  compared  with 
the  divine  commission  to  disciple  all  nations  :  to  change  the 
character,  the  faith,  and  the  eternal  destiny  of  immortal 
millions  ;  to  scatter  the  cloud  of  ignorance  and  superstition 
which  has  brooded  over  the  homes  and  darkened  the  hearts 
and  defeated  the  hopes  of  nations  for  ages  ;  to  put  an  end 
to  the  waste  and  the  wickedness  of  war,  the  misery  of  want, 
the  prevalence  of  crime,  and  the  power  of  falsehood  and 
wrong  in  every  land  ;  to  begin  and  build  up  a  redeemed  and 
immortal  brotherhood  of  the  whole  human  race  ;  to  make 
the  law  and  the  life  of  earth  and  heaven  one ;  and  so 
to  establish  among  men  a  kingdom  that  shall  be  blessed 
in  experience  and  universal  in  authority  and  endless  in 
duration. 

All  that  is  included  in  the  divine  charge  to  go  and  disciple 
all  nations,  and  all  that  will  be  done  when  the  requirements 
of  the  commission  are  fulfilled.  All  arts,  sciences,  inven- 
tions,  improvements   needed    for    the    highest    development 


FOR  WARD.  3  1  5 

of  the  human  family  will  follow  as  a  natural  and  inevitable 
consequence  when  the  religion  of  Christ  has  become  the 
law  of  duty  and  the  guide  of  conduct  in  all  nations.  Let 
children  grow  into 'the  knowledge  of  these  great  facts  of 
life  and  duty  as  fast  as  they  grow  into  the  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  look  about  them  and 
ask  what  is  best  worth  living  for,  what  needs  to  be  done  to 
make  things  all  right  in  the  world  where  so  many  things 
for  ages  have  been  wrong.  Stimulate  their  minds,  inspire 
their  hopes,  draw  out  their  affections,  direct  their  choice  of 
study  and  occupation  by  setting  before  them  continually 
the  demands  of  this  great  enterprise,  this  mighty  revolution 
which  contemplates  the  uplifting  and  the  emancipation  of 
all  nations.  In  that  way  they  will  best  learn  how  to  be  brave 
and  patient  and  generous,  how  to  be  kind  and  gentle  and 
strong,  how  to  be  cheerful  and  magnanimous  and  victorious 
in  the  great  battle  of  life.  Teach  the  child  early  to  come 
out  of  himself  and  take  the  whole  world  to  his  heart  in  love 
and  sympathy  and  to  seek  his  own  happiness  in  effort  and 
desire  to  make  others  happy.  Teach  the  little  children  that 
they  are  especially  blessed  of  Christ  and  called  by  him  to 
take  their  place  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Help  them  in 
every  possible  way  to  grow  up  into  the  feeling  and  the  belief 
that  the  privilege,  the  duty,  and  the  joy  of  living  are  to  takie 
the  words  of  Christ  from  his  own  lips  and  send  them  out 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  bless  other  children  whose  homes 
are  the  habitations  of  darkness  and  cruelty. 

Teach  children  from  the  earliest  years,  by  precept  and  by 
example,  that  Christian  service  ennobles  and  beautifies  char- 
acter,   Christian    giving   enriches    and    rejoices    the    heart. 


3l6  MORNfNG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Christian  living  is  the  only  right  and  true  and  happy  living. 
Let  the  discipline  and  the  daily  conversation  of  the  Chris- 
tian family  impress  the  children  with  the  feeling  that  the 
beauty,  the  attractiveness,  and  the  high  authority  of  the 
Christian  life  surpass  all  worldly  promises  of  good,  all  pos- 
sessions and  pleasures  which  begin  and  end  in  selfish  grati- 
fication. Let  every  Sunday-school  lesson  be  so  taught  that 
the  classes  shall  be  impressed  with  the  universality  of  the 
truths  set  before  us  in  the  gospel  and  their  fitness  to  carry 
light  and  peace  to  all  races  of  men,  to  all  lands  and  for  all 
time.  Let  the  tone  and  spirit  of  everything  said  in  meet- 
ings for  prayer  and  exhortation  lead  observers  from  the 
outside  to  say,  "These  people  are  in  earnest  and  they  mean 
to  put  their  religion  through  the  world.  Whenever  they  get 
together,  they  are  always  talking  and  planning  and  praying 
about  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and,  judging  from 
the  way  they  talk,  it  would  seem  as  if  they  thought  the 
kingdom  to  be  close  at  hand."  Let  the  habitual  conversa- 
tion, judgments,  opinions,  and  conduct  of  Christians  wher- 
ever they  go,  wherever  they  are,  assume  that  the  one  thing 
most  needed  by  all  the  nations  is  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and 
that  the  highest  honor,  the  most  complete  success  in  life  is 
gained  by  him  who  does  most  to  hasten  the  coming  of  a 
reign  of  righteousness  and  peace  in  all  the  earth. 

Let  every  minister  preach  on  the  Sabbath  and  carry 
himself  before  his  people  on  all  occasions  in  such  manner 
that  they  will  see  in  him  a  man  who  has  a  message  from 
God,  and  who  is  all  intent  upon  delivering  that  message  as 
God  has  bidden  him  do.  Let  him  so  act  and  speak  in  the 
fulfillment  of    his  high   commission  that    all  who    hear   his 


FOR  WARD. 


17 


words  and  observe  his  conduct  will  take  it  for  granted  that 
Christian  profession  means  obedience  to  Christ's  commands, 
devotion  to  the  work  which  Christ  has  given  his  followers 
to  do,  full  acceptance  of  the  charge  to  proclaim  his  truth 
to  all  nations.  Let  these  greatest,  simplest  principles  of 
Christian  service  be  fully  accepted  and  honestly  acted  upon 
by  ten  millions  of  Christians  in  America,  and  every  heathen 
nation  would  feel  the  touch  of  that  new  life  in  a  single  year; 
every  missionary  station  would  celebrate  the  event  with 
hymns  of  thanksgiving  and  praise;  every  objection  which 
skeptics  bring  against  practical  Christianity  would  be 
answered;  every  honest  doubter  would  be  led  to  see  the 
foundation  of  faith,  and  every  scoffer  would  be  compelled 
to  shut  his  mouth  in  silence  and  shame. 


XX. 


ONE    LAW    OF    DUTY    FOR    ALL. 


'T^HE  standard  of  duty  and  of  individual  consecration 
-^  is  the  same  to  all  Christians,  whether  serving  as  mis- 
sionaries in  the  foreign  field,  or  enjoying  the  advantages  of 
Christian  culture,  refined  society,  and  domestic  peace  in  the 
home  land.  Indebtedness  to  Christ  for  the  forgiveness  of 
sin  and  the  hope  of  salvation  is  the  same  to  all.  Christ 
gave  himself  as  freely  and  as  fully  for  one  as  for  another. 
He  lays  equally  upon  all  who  receive  his  word  the  com- 
mand to  carry  it  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  cause  all 
nations  to  receive  it  as  the  message  of  life  and  salvation. 
He  gives  to  all  alike  the  privilege  and  the  honor  of  bearing 
a  part  in  the  greatest  commission  ever  given  to  man,  the 
mio'htiest  work  which  God  himself  undertakes  to  do  in  this 
world.  No  one  can  make  a  greater  mistake  in  his  plans 
for  life  than  to  stand  aside  and  let  God's  work  go  on  with- 
out help  from  him.  No  one  can  make  a  sadder  misuse  of 
time  and  talent  and  property  than  to  keep  all  for  himself 
and  leave  the  sacrifices  of  duty  for  others  to  make  and  the 
rewards  of  duty  for  others  to  enjoy. 

It  will  be  a  new  and  glorious  era  in  Christian  work  when 
all  Christians  in  the  home  land  openly  accept  and  faithfully 
act  upon  the  same  principles  of  duty  which  are  enjoined 
upon  missionaries  and  converts  in  the  foreign  field.  Let 
ten    milhons    of   Christians    in    America    adopt    the    same 

318 


ONE  LAW  OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  319 

plans  for  individual  effort  for  the  conversion  of  men,  and 
let  them  manifest  the  same  degree  of  personal  consecra- 
tion to  Christ,  which  we  all  expect  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  men  who  go  to  the  far-off  lands  of  the  East  to  preach 
the  gospel,  and  the  change  for  the  better  in  our  own  country 
will  be  as  strongly  marked  as  that  which  we  pray  for  among 
the  heathen. 

Christians  at  home  are  quite  ready  and  agreed  to  see  that 
the  foreign  missionary  gives  his  whole  time  and  strength 
and  resources  to  the  work  of  seeking  the  salvation  of  the 
heathen  to  whom  he  is  sent.  We  criticize  his  plans  and 
principles  of  working  and  preaching  solely  with  a  view  to 
decide  whether  they  are  the  best  to  secure  the  acceptance 
of  the  gospel  and  the  beginnings  of  the  true  life  in  the 
hearts  of  individual  men.  Whatever  else  he  may  do,  and 
however  well  he  does  it,  we  are  not  satisfied  with  his  labor 
unless  we  see  the  result,  or  at  least  the  one  thing  aimed  at, 
in  the  actual  conversion  of  men.  If  in  any  case  it  should 
be  reported  that  the  missionary  is  not  diligent,  devoted,  and 
self-denying  for  the  souls  of  the  ignorant  and  degraded 
people  about  him,  there  would  be  a  great  cry  of  surprise 
and  indignation  at  home.  Many  who  give  themselves  very 
little  trouble  or  self-denial  for  the  conversion  of  men  at 
home  would  be  ready  to  say,  "  What  right  has  he  to  call 
himself  a  missionary  of  Christ  if  he  is  not  wholly  devoted 
to  the  work  which  Christ  sends  him  to  do .''  For  what 
purpose  do  we  give  money  to  support  him  in  the  foreign 
field  if  not  that  he  may  give  his  whole  time  and  strength 
to  the  work  of  bringing  the  heathen  to  the  acceptance  of 
Christ  by  living  faith  and  personal  devotion  to  him?"     All 


320  MOKiVIXG   LIGHT  LV  MANY  LANDS. 

that  would  be  said  of  the  missionary,  if  he  should  give  him- 
self to  the  work  of  secular  education  and  social  improve- 
ment among  the  heathen,  and  not  put  their  conversion  first 
and  foremost  as  the  object  of  his  mission.  And  all  that 
would  be  said  by  men  who  give  little  to  foreign  missions 
and  who  manifest  little  interest  in  the  progress  of  the  work. 

l^ut  who  shall  say  that  the  foreign  missionary  is  under 
greater  obligation  to  give  himself  wholly  to  Christ  than 
any  professed  Christian  at  home  .■'  Has  Christ  done  any 
more  for  him  than  for  those  who  are  surrounded  by  all  the 
comforts  and  advantages  of  Christian  civilization  in  the 
home  land  .'*  Was  the  apostle  speaking  only  to  one  Chris- 
tian in  a  million,  or  to  the  whole  Church,  when  he  said,  "  Ye 
are  not  your  own,  ye  are  bought  with  a  price  "  .-'  It  is  quite 
time  that  the  Church  should  learn  to  look  at  this  matter  of 
Christian  consecration  in  its  true  light.  The  law  of  duty 
is  the  same  to  all.  The  least  and  the  lowest  qualification 
for  good  standing  in  the  family  of  Christ  is  obedience  to 
him.  No  one  has  the  right  to  count  himself  a  Christian 
until  he  makes  a  full  surrender  of  himself  and  all  he  has  to 
the  service  of  his  new  Master.  That  service  of  submission 
and  consecration  is  required  equally  of  all,  whatever  may 
be  the  occupation  that  any  one  pursues  or  the  position 
which  he  holds  in  society.  Rich  or  poor,  learned  or  igno- 
rant, his  first  word  of  faith  must  say  to  Christ,  "  Lord,  I  give 
myself  to  do  whatsoever  thou  wilt." 

We  cannot  be  Christ's  disciples  at  all  unless  we  give  up 
all  we  have  and  are  to  him,  even  as  he  gave  himself  freely 
and  fully  for  us  all.  His  own  devotion  to  his  chosen  work 
in  seeking  and  saving  the  lost  is  the  only  safe  rule  by  which 


ONE  LAW   OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  32  I 

we  must  judge  our  devotion  to  him.  No  one  who  reads  the 
gospel  thoughtfully  can  fail  to  see  that  Christ  gave  himself 
wholly  to  the  work  which  he  had  received  of  the  Father  to 
do.  He  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners,  and  he  gave 
his  time  and  strength  and  heart  to  the  fulfillment  of  that 
mission  to  the  end.  We  are  all  to  follow  him,  imitate  him, 
imbibe  his  spirit,  believe  his  word,  count  our  lives  successful 
only  so  far  as  we  enter  into  his  work,  obey  his  commands, 
hnish  the  work  he  has  given  us  to  do. 

We  expect  all  this  of  the  missionary  who  goes  to  spend 
his  life  in  India,  China,  or  Japan.  We  think  we  have  the 
right  to  expect  it  of  him.  But  has  he  not  the  same  right 
to  expect  that  we  in  the  home  land  shall  be  just  as  much 
devoted  to  Christ,  just  as  much  in  earnest  to  use  our  time 
and  efforts  and  possessions  for  the  advance  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  among  men  }  He  severs  the  ties  that  bind  him  to 
home  and  friends,  he  makes  himself  an  exile  from  his  be- 
loved country,  he  goes  to  live  with  men  of  strange  tongues 
and  rude  manners  and  dissolute  habits.  He  submits  every 
day  and  through  all  the  year  to  the  sight  and  sound  and 
smell  of  abominable  things.  He  labors  under  sore  discour- 
agement and  in  the  face  of  blind  opposition,  and  he  does  all 
that  because  the  love  of  Christ  constrains  him  to  yield  the 
service  with  a  glad  heart,  and  because  he  feels  that  his 
fellow-men  have  a  claim  upon  him  for  his  best  service  in 
the  name  of  our  common  humanity  as  well  as  in  the  name 
of  our  common  Lord  and  Saviour.  Has  not  the  missionary 
the  right  to  expect  that  those  Christians  who  are  in  the  full 
enjoyment  of  all  the  comforts  and  advantages  of  the  home 
land  will  be  glad  to  show  their  gratitude  for  all  that  Christ 


322  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

has  done  for  them  by  doing  their  best  for  those  who  live 
in  the  dark  places  of  the  earth  ? 

The  Church  must  look  into  this  matter  seriously,  ear- 
nestly, dispassionately  ;  not  in  the  spirit  of  fanaticism,  not 
from  the  impulse  of  some  sudden  flame  of  zeal  which  burns 
only  while  it  is  blown  upon  by  the  hot  breath  of  excitement 
or  kept  alive  by  persistent  and  personal  appeal.  There  are 
principles  of  doctrine  and  of  duty  to  be  weighed,  facts  to 
be  ascertained,  histories  to  be  studied,  arguments  and  evi- 
dences to  be  examined,  and  conclusions  to  be  drawn,  in  the 
most  calm,  deliberate,  and  rational  spirit.  And  we  are  to 
aqt  in  view  of  the  demands  that  come  from  the  highest 
authority  and  in  answer  to  claims  which  are  sustained  by 
clear  and  unquestionable  truths.  If  we  do  that,  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  adopt  the  same  standard  of  duty  and  personal 
consecration  to  Christ  for  ourselves  which  we  apply  to  the 
work  and  responsibility  of  the  missionary  in  the  foreign 
field. 

If  we  count  ourselves  Christians,  followers  of  Christ,  it 
should  be  all  a  matter  of  course  that  we  make  his  work  our 
own,  our  interest  in  the  great  human  family  the  same  as  his, 
and  give  our  time  and  strength  and  heart  to  the  completion 
of  the  one  great  enterprise  for  which  he  came  to  our  world 
to  labor,  to  suffer,  and  to  die.  So  we  all  expect  the  mission- 
ary to  do.  Why  not  we  at  home,  as  well  as  he  in  the  foreign 
field  .''  We  are  all  indebted  to  Christ  as  much  as  he  ;  the 
gospel  has  conferred  as  great  blessings  on  us  as  on  him. 
He  has  given  up  the  enjoyment  of  the  countless  and  price- 
less blessings  which  come  to  us  all  from  living  in  this 
favored  country,  and  he  has  gone  to  people  who  live  in  the 


ONE  LAW   OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  323 

dark  places  of  the  earth  that  he  may  teach  them  how  to 
make  their  land  as  good  as  ours.  Seeing  that  he  has  denied 
himself  so  greatly  for  the  good  of  others  by  voluntary 
exile  from  his  native  land,  and  we  are  here  to  enjoy  all  that 
he  has  left  behind,  there  is  even  more  reason  why  we  should 
devote  our  time  and  influence  and  property  to  the  advance 
of  Christ's  kingdom  on  earth.  If  we  do  not  go  in  person  to 
live  and  die  among  the  heathen  for  their  salvation,  we 
should  at  least  sustain  those  who  do  go  with  our  confidence 
and  our  contributions,  with  our  believing  prayer  and  our 
warmest  sympathy. 

When  young  converts  come  into  the  Church  and  enroll 
their  names  as  followers  of  Christ,  they  should  be  taught 
in  the  very  outset  of  their  profession  the  great  principle  of 
unreserved,  undivided  devotion  to  Christ.  They  are  to  take 
that  consecration  on  themselves,  not  as  a  bondage,  but  as 
the  highest  liberty  which  man  can  attain  ;  the  freest,  fullest, 
happiest  use  and  enjoyment  of  every  faculty  and  possession. 
They  are  to  give  themselves  to  the  greatest  work,  the  most 
honorable  and  glorious  career  that  is  open  for  man  in  this 
world,  a  work  that  will  demand  toils  and  sacrifices  all  the 
way,  but  which  will  be  to  them  its  own  exceeding  great 
reward. 

Let  nobody  take  time  and  argument  to  make  the  condi- 
tions of  following  Christ  easy.  The  young  convert  need 
not  be  told  how  little  he  has  to  do,  or  to  be,  in  order  to  be 
accepted  of  Christ  as  a  good  and  faithful  servant  of  his. 
When  Paul  was  started  upon  his  career  as  the  apostle  to 
bear  the  name  of  Jesus  before  the  nations  and  kings  of  the 
earth,  he  was  shown  how  great  things  he  must   suffer  in  the 


324  MOA'X/.VG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

fulfillment  of  his  divine  commission  ;  and  the  revelation  of 
the  greatness  of  the  work  which  he  was  called  to  do  for 
his  Master  girt  him  with  strength  and  courage  to  do  it 
well.  So  let  every  young  Christian  be  taught  in  the  very 
outset  of  his  profession  how  complete  is  the  consecration 
which  Christ  demands,  how  great  is  the  work  which  Christ 
gives  the  humblest  of  his  followers  to  do,  how  glorious  is 
the  reward  which  awaits  all  who  are  faithful  unto  death. 
Such  teaching  will  lift  him  above  all  fear  and  complaint  and 
discouragement  ;  it  will  give  him  joy  in  every  trial  and 
triumph  over  every  temptation ;  it  will  fire  his  soul  with  the 
fervor  of  love  and  the  strength  of  faith  which  made  the 
apostle  to  the  Gentiles  the  greatest  man  of  his  time.  With 
such  a  membership  trained  up  from  the  beginning  of  Chris- 
tian profession  to  follow  Christ  in  all  things,  any  church 
will  be  strong,  prosperous,  united,  and  happy.  With  them, 
work,  gifts,  prayer,  effort,  will  always  bring  enlargement  of 
heart,  enlightenment  of  mind,  steadiness  and  constancy  in 
character,  such  as  no  worldly  plans  or  policies  can  give. 
They  will  lead  the  advance  of  the  age  towards  a  greater  and 
better  life  than  has  been  seen  on  the  earth  in  all  the  i:>ast. 

Possibly  it  may  be  said  or  thought  by  some  that  the 
necessary  industries  of  life  could  not  be  carried  on  success- 
fully in  Christian  lands  if  all,  equally  with  the  foreign  mis- 
sionary, were  devoted  to  the  work  of  publishing  the  gospel 
to  all  the  nations.  It  has  actually  been  said  in  public  address 
by  some  who  claim  to  lead  the  adv'ance  of  the  age,  that  the 
human  family  would  be  reduced  to  a  state  of  barbarism  if 
all  should  attempt  to  livd  by  the  rules  of  life  laid  down  by 
Christ  himself   in    the    Sermon    on    the   Mount.     All    such 


ONE   LAW   OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  325 

speakers  lose  sight  of  the  fact,  attested  by  eighteen  hundred 
years  of  Christian  history,  that  Christianity,  in  the  most 
enlig'htened  and  liberal  acceptance  of  its  doctrines  and 
requirements,  promotes  the  highest  welfare  of  men  in  this 
world,  while  its  chief  aim  is  to  prepare  them  for  the  endless 
life  to  come.  It  teaches  every  man  to  work,  each  in  his  own 
order,  with  the  best  use  of  his  own  faculties,  in  some  one 
of  the  necessary  and  profitable  industries  of  life,  and  all  with 
the  same  degree  of  devotion  to  Christ  and  his  kingdom  on 
the  earth.  Christianity  brings  men  into  harmony  with  all 
the  laws  and  forces  which  are  in  operation  in  the  physical 
world,  and  at  the  same  time  it  also  brings  them  into  ever- 
lasting harmony  with  the  higher  laws  of  our  spiritual  and 
immortal  being. 

The  original  act  of  creation  set  man  over  all  things  in  the 
earth  and  put  all  material  forces  and  irrational  creatures 
under  his  feet  to  serve  him.  By  ignorance  and  dissipation 
and  disobedience,  men  have  lost  a  large  part  of  the  dominion 
over  the  powers  and  resources  of  nature  which  belonged  to 
them  by  gift  of  the  first  creation.  Christianity  comes  to 
restore  the  lost  estate  to  those  who  have  recklessly  thrown 
it  away  and  have  been  mourning  and  complaining  over  their 
poverty  for  ages.  Slowly  as  it  advances,  it  gives  sight  to 
the  blind  and  hearing  to  the  deaf  and  power  to  the  palsied 
and  freedom  to  the  enslaved.  In  this  nineteenth  century  of 
Christian  progress,  men  are  just  beginning  to  find  out  the 
greatness  of  the  powers  and  possessions  given  them  of  God, 
and  which,  in  their  ignorance  and  perversity,  they  never  saw, 
never  suspected,  until  they  recovered  their  lost  "  vision  and 
faculty  divine,"  by  faith  in  the  Son  of   God.     Now,  every- 


326  MORXIXG   LIGHT  I  A'  MANY  LANDS. 

thing  about  us  seems  to  be  endowed  with  new  life  and  power, 
just  because  we  begin  to  see  things  as  God  made  them  and 
meant  us  to  see  and  use  them  when  he  put  man  into  the 
world  with  the  command  to  subdue  and  possess  the  wide 
domain  of  earth,  air,  and  sea. 

New  arts  and  inventions  are  constantly  coming  into  use, 
new  mines  of  wealth  are  opened,  new  applications  of  the 
original  forces  of  nature  are  devised  every  year,  as  time 
moves  on,  just  because  men  are  beginning  to  know  God 
better  and  are  coming  to  live  more  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  life  and  well-being  established  in  the  original  crea- 
tion. When  all  the  people  praise  God,  both  in  practical 
service  and  in  grateful  song,  the  earth  will  yield  her  increase 
in  such  abundance  as  never  before.  All  arts  and  inventions 
which  increase  the  wealth  and  the  resources  of  the  human 
family  are  best  known  and  used  in  lands  where  the  gospel 
of  Christ  is  most  fully  accepted  and  believed  and  obeyed  as 
the  true  law  of  life  and  duty  for  all  men.  Let  the  merchants, 
the  mechanics,  the  manufacturers,  the  farmers,  all  classes 
and  conditions  of  men  in  America,  pursue  their  chosen 
occupations  with  just  as  clear  and  firm  a  purpose  to  use  all 
their  influence  and  possessions  for  the  establishment  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  as  all  expect  the  missionary  to  do, 
and  the  homes  of  our  own  dear  land  would  be  filled  with 
peace  and  plenty  to  such  a  degree  as  never  before,  and 
there  would  be  millions  to  spare  every  year  for  the  evangel- 
ization of  the  heathen. 

The  most  Christian  nations  are  already  the  richest,  and 
they  are  accumulating  wealth  more  rapidly  than  any  other 
people  in  the  world.     And   their  religion   is  the  source   of 


OXE  LAW  OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  327 

their  power  and  their  prosperity.  The  heathen  of  Japan 
to-day  would  vote  themselves  Christians,  if  by  so  doing  they 
could  secure  the  wealth,  the  arts,  the  inventions,  the  science, 
the  progress,  the  hope  which  the  gospel  has  given  to  Chris- 
tian nations.  They  can  see  that  the  religion  of  the  Bible, 
believed  and  obeyed,  brings  people  into  harmony  with  the 
great  powers  about  them  in  the  physical  world  and  gives 
them  the  most  complete  command  over  the  riches  and 
resources  of  the  earth.  And  they  are  right  in  supposing 
that  the  religion  of  the  western  nations  has  given  them 
their  superiority  to  the  nations  of  the  ancient  and  decaying 
East.  Let  Christianity  have  full  course  and  command  in 
any  country,  and  the  wastes  of  war  and  intemperance  and 
vice  and  ignorance  and  idleness  will  be  stopped  at  once. 
There  would  be  hundreds  of  millions  to  spare  every  year  for 
the  diffusion  of  the  same  light  and  liberty  among  all  nations, 
until  all  lands  were  enlightened  and  all  people  were  free. 
Let  the  degraded  millions  of  Africa  and  Asia  learn  to  live 
by  the  law  of  the  gospel,  and  the  wealth  of  the  world  will 
be  increased  a  hundredfold.  Everywhere  there  will  be  skill 
and  labor  and  capital  and  tools  and  machinery  to  construct 
all  manner  of  needed  public  works,  to  establish  all  useful 
institutions,  to  provide  everything  for  the  universal  good 
of  all  the  people  of  all  the  earth. 

The  want  of  men  and  money  to  carry  the  gospel  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  within  the  present  generation  comes  only 
from  the  fact  that  people  in  Christian  nations  have  not  yet 
fully  come  up  to  the  gospel  standard  of  right  and  happy 
living.  Let  ten  millions  of  Christians  in  America  adopt 
that  standard  and  carry  it  out  in  all   the  social   and  business 


328  MOKXIXG   LIGHT  IN  MA XV  I.AXDS. 

relations  of  life,  and  their  example  would  brin<;  twice  as 
many  millions  more  to  join  in  the  great  crusade  for  the 
world's  redemption.  Such  an  exceeding  great  army,  march- 
ing to  battle  against  the  powers  of  darkness,  under  the 
leadership  of  the  Prince  of  peace,  would  be  mightier  than 
all  the  armies  of  the  nations.  They  could  cause  wars  to 
cease  upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth.  They  could  close 
up  the  recruiting  places  of  vice  and  infamy  in  all  the  great 
cities  of  the  world.  They  could  save  for  education  and 
humanity  millions  which  are  now  worse  than  wasted  upon 
wickedness  and  dissipation.  They  could  compel  all  kings  of 
the  earth  and  all  rulers  of  the  people  to  respect  their  will 
and  help  them  in  their  beneficent  designs  for  the  common 
good  of  all  mankind.  They  could  supply  a  preacher  of  the 
gospel  for  every  five  hundred  of  the  heathen  world.  They 
could  lift  education  and  social  culture  to  so  high  a  standard 
all  round  the  earth  that  books  and  engines  and  furniture  and 
tools  and  all  manner  of  instrumentalities  of  refinement  and 
civilization  would  be  in  use  and  demand  in  all  places  where 
now  men  live  in  hovels  of  mud,  and  women  carry  burdens 
like  the  pack  horse,  and  children  have  no  homes  but  the 
habitations  of  cruelty. 

In  order  that  Christianity  may  show  its  full  power  to 
uplift  and  enrich  the  whole  human  family,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary that  those  now  professing  faith  in  Christ  should  accept, 
with  the  whole  heart,  his  new  commandment  of  love  and 
his  one  Great  Commission  to  disciple  all  the  nations.  Let 
the  Church  become  a  living  body  of  enrolled  followers  of 
Christ  who  stand  ready  to  do  his  will  in  all  that  he  com- 
mands, let  them  devote  time  and   strength  and  ability  and 


ONE  LAW  OF  DUTY  FOR  ALL.  329 

possessions  wholly  and  cheerfully  to  the  work  which  Christ 
has  given  them  to  do,  and  soon  all  the  riches  and  powers  of 
the  earth  would  come  into  their  possession  and  the  posses- 
sion of  those  who  join  with  them  in  the  endeavor  to  estab- 
lish the  kingdom  of  God  among  all  nations.  Then  would 
come  the  time  when  a  handful  of  corn  on  the  mountains 
would  bring  forth  a  harvest  waving  like  Lebanon.  The 
least  labor  would  bring  the  greatest  reward.  All  questions 
of  work  and  wages  would  be  peacefully  settled  in  accordance 
with  the  supreme  law  of  right,  and  all  the  children  of  want 
would  be  blessed.  The  waste  places  of  the  desert  and  the 
wilderness  would  become  like  the  garden  of  Paradise  in 
beauty  and  fertility  ;  the  bitter  cry  of  starving  children  would 
cease  to  be  heard  in  the  crowded  cities  ;  the  residents  in 
scattered  villages  would  become  like  members  of  the  same 
family,  living  together  in  happiness  and  peace. 


XXI. 


THE    CONSECRATION    OF    WEALTH. 

/^~\'NE  prime  condition  of  advance  in  the  great  missionary 
^^  enterprise  all  over  the  world  is  the  consecration  of 
the  great  and  growing  wealth  of  Christians  in  America  and 
in  all  Christian  lands  to  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  all  the  earth.  The  most  Christian  nations  are  the 
richest,  and  wealth  is  accumulating  in  their  hands  more 
rapidly  than  in  the  hands  of  any  other  people.  It  must  nec- 
essarily be  so.  Among  them,  mind  is  most  active  and 
inventive  ;  the  great  and  exhaustless  resources  of  nature  are 
best  understood  and  mastered  ;  there  is  less  waste  in  war 
and  ignorance  and  vice  and  idleness ;  life  is  longer,  and 
effort  is  more  wisely  applied,  and  the  fruits  of  labor  are  more 
securely  held ;  there  is  greater  freedom  of  action  and  a 
higher  inspiration  of  hope  and  reward. 

In  all  heathen  and  Mohammedan  countries  there  is  always 
great  wastefulness,  loss  of  time  and  labor  and  resources  and 
power.  The  traditions  and  observances  of  caste  and  custom 
check  all  progress,  discourage  all  effort,  and  destroy  all  hope. 
The  government  taxes  and  oppresses  and  plunders.  The  rich 
acquire  and  keep  their  property  by  bribery  and  fraud  and 
falsehood,  and  the  poor  have  no  helper,  the  suffering  no  pity, 
and  multitudes  think  it  better  to  die  than  to  live.  In 
such  nations  there  is  no  honorable  way  open  to  all  for  the 
acquisition  of  wealth ;  there  is  no  way  in  which  it   can   be 


THE    CONSECRATION  OF  WEALTH.  33  I 

safely  kept  or  profitably  used  if  gained  ;  injustice  and  fraud, 
crime  and  cruelty,  are  the  qualifications  for  success,  and  a 
dark  shadow  of  hopelessness  rests  on  the  people. 

But  in  Christian  lands  there  are  law  and  order,  protection 
to  life  and  liberty,  the  highest  stimulus  to  effort,  and  the 
surest  prospect  of  enjoying  the  reward  of  labor.  Far- 
reaching  plans  are  made  ;  vast  resources  from  the  treasure- 
house  of  nature  are  developed ;  study  and  experiment  and 
invention  are  ever  going  on  ;  the  discoveries  and  accumula- 
tions of  one  generation  are  passed  safely  on  to  the  next  to 
be  continued  and  increased  ;  roads,  travel,  means  of  inter- 
course, distribute  the  results  of  industry  all  round  the  globe 
and  gather  in  the  riches  and  productions  of  all  lands.  The 
laws,  the  education,  the  freedom  of  Christian  lands  alone 
make  such  material  prosperity  possible.  And  far  the  larger 
part  of  the  wealth  in  the  hands  of  men  in  Christian  lands 
has  come  to  them  through  the  enlightening,  uplifting,  and 
humanizing  influence  of  the  gospel.  And  still  more,  the 
liberty  to  possess,  to  use,  and  to  enjoy  their  great  wealth 
has  come  to  them  through  the  just  laws,  the  social  order, 
good  education,  improvement  in  the  practical  arts,  multi- 
plicity of  inventions  growing  out  of  the  mental  and  moral 
activity  infused  into  the  minds  of  men  by  the  teaching  and 
the  spiritual  impulse  of  Christianity. 

It  is  only  a  fitting  expression  of  gratitude  to  the  Giver  of 
all  their  prosperity  that  Christians  in  America  should  use 
their  wealth  in  promoting  a  wider  diffusion  of  the  knowl- 
edge, the  power,  the  truth  from  which  their  material  and 
intellectual  prosperity  comes.  The  best,  the  most  effectual 
way  of  getting  the  highest  good  of  the  wealth  which  the 


332  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

gospel  brings  to  nations  is  to  use  it,  as  the  gospel  enjoins, 
in  promoting  the  highest  welfare  of  the  whole  human  family. 
The  vast  accumulation  of  the  means  of  luxurious  living 
and  the  strong  temptation  to  live  in  ease  and  pride  and 
sensuality  will  certainly  bring  corruption,  weakness,  decay,  if 
wealth  be  not  used  in  lifting  up  the  tone  of  national  purity, 
promoting  enlarged  views  of  Christian  beneficence,  bringing 
the  whole  family  of  man  to  share  in  the  glorious  light  and 
liberty  of  the  gospel.  No  nation  on  earth  can  long  withstand 
the  terrible  temptations  of  great  wealth  and  great  facilities 
for  luxurious  living,  unless  ever-accumulating  riches  be  used 
generously  and  persistently  in  the  service  of  humanity,  in  the 
promotion  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Wealth  without  princi- 
ple, conscience,  Christian  consecration,  brings  pride,  selfish- 
ness, sensuality,  enervation  of  character,  all  manner  of 
vicious  indulgence,  all  social  disgrace  and  disaster,  want  of 
patriotism,  want  of  courage,  endurance,  faith,  conscience, 
justice,  purity.  Wealth  without  the  will  to  use  it  rightly 
corrupts  and  debases  manhood,  undermines  the  foundations 
of  society,  takes  away  all  stimulus  to  healthful  exertion 
and  self-denial,  makes  a  nation  mean  and  sensual  and 
contemptible 

Such  was  the  effect  in  Rome  when  her  nobles  were  en- 
riched with  the  spoils  of  conquered  nations,  and  her  populace 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  debasing  pleasures  of  the  bath 
and  the  brothel,  the  race  course  and  the  amphitheater. 
Never  in  all  history  has  there  been  a  more  revolting  ex- 
hibition of  meanness  and  cowardice  and  sensuality  than 
there  was  in  the  great  Imperial  City  when  the  products  of 
all  lands  flowed  into   her   markets   and    the    wealth    of   all 


THE    CONSECRATION  OF  WEALTH. 


OJ. 


nations  enriched  her  treasuries.  So  was  it  with  Venice, 
when  her  senators  were  robed  in  purple,  and  "  her  daughters 
had  their  dowers  from  spoils  of  nations,"  and  her  marble 
palaces  rose  "  from  out  the  wave  as  from  the  stroke  of  an 
enchanter's  wand."  Meanness  and  treachery  and  every 
excess  of  profligacy  reigned  in  her  homes  and  streets  and 
made  the  once  brave  and  beautiful  city  a  Sodom  of  the  sea. 
All  this  was  the  natural  and  inevitable  consequence  of  great 
wealth  coming  into  the  hands  of  proud  and  prosperous  men, 
who  became  false  and  effeminate  and  licentious  just  because 
they  lost  all  regard  for  the  public  good  and  learned  to  live 
only  for  themselves. 

Such  will  be  the  effect  of  the  vast  and  rapid  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  the  Christian  people  of 
America  unless  it  finds  the  healthful  and  happy  outlet  of 
Christian  beneficence.  Christian  enlargement  of  effort,  sacri- 
fice, and  enterprise,  in  all  manner  of  Christian  work.  Chris- 
tian parents  who  lay  up  wealth  for  their  children  without 
teaching  them  to  use  it  in  the  service  of  God  miss  the  main 
condition  of  promoting  their  children's  welfare.  If  the 
children  are  trained  up  to  bear  an  honorable  part  in  the 
great  work  of  enlightening  and  redeeming  all  nations,  they 
will  have  the  highest  enjoyment  life  can  give,  whether  rich 
or  poor.  They  will  not  be  pensioners  upon  the  legacies  of 
their  par  .nts,  nor  will  they  depend  for  support  and  happi- 
ness upon  the  work  which  somebody  else  has  done  for  them. 

Successful  business  men  who  have  accumulated  large 
property  in  consequence  of  the  great  opportunities  afforded 
in  a  Christian  country  will  never  get  the  full  value  of  their 
acquisitions  unless  they  learn  to  use  them   in  the  endeavor 


334  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

to  bring  the  greatest  possible  number  of  others  to  enjoy  the 
same  privilege,  secure  the  same  prosperity.  They  cannot 
help  knowing  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  in  all 
heathen  countries  are  poor,  very  poor.  They  live  in 
wretched  homes  ;  they  wear  the  scantiest  and  the  meanest 
clothin;;-  ;  they  suffer  daily  io\  the  want  of  sufficient  and 
suitable  food  ;  multitudes  of  their  children,  millions  and 
millions,  wear  no  clothing  at  all.  They  have  no  books 
or  pictures  or  furniture  to  brighten  their  lowly  dwellings ; 
mud  walls  and  earth  floors  and  moldcring  thatch  of  reeds 
or  straw  make  up  all  the  beauty  and  comfort  which  they 
associate  with  the  name  of  home.  They  are  taxed  and 
oppressed,  if  they  live  under  heathen  governments  ;  they  are 
worse  taxed  and  oppressed  by  traditions,  superstitions,  and 
social  distinctions  that  have  come  down  to  them  from  their 
fathers.  They  see  no  way  in  which  it  may  be  possible  for 
them  to  rise  above  the  wretched  condition  into  which  they 
have  been  born,  and  in  which  they  must  live  from  birth  to 
death.  The  whole  world  about  them  is  peopled  with  imagi- 
nary beings  that  are  ever  lying  in  wait  to  do  them  harm. 
They  resort  to  all  manner  of  spells  and  enchantments  and 
sacrifices  to  guard  against  unreal  dangers.  So  they  spend 
their  whole  life  in  fear  and  dread  of  beings  that  have  no 
existence  and  of  dangers  that  never  come.  They  are  tanta- 
lized with  hopes  that  are  never  fulfilled  ;  they  pray  for 
blessings  that  are  never  given. 

Such  is  the  life  of  millions  of  the  great  human  family. 
They  are  not  so  far  off  but  that  we  can  go  to  them  :  we  can 
understand  much  of  their  troubles  and  fears  and  sorrows. 
Facilities  for  travel  and  for  the  transmission  of  informatiork 


THE    CONSECRATION  OF  WEALTH.  335 

growing  out  of  Christian  civilization  have  brought  the 
heathen  in  the  remote  parts  of  the  earth  to  our  very  doors. 
We  can  know  as  much  about  them  as  we  can  about  some 
parts  of  our  own  country.  Friends,  neighbors,  intelligent, 
conscientious  observers  are  constantly  going  round  the  world 
and  coming  home  to  tell  what  they  saw  and  learned  on  the 
journey.  The  heathen  of  India  and  Japan  are  now  as  near 
to  us  as  were  the  settlers  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi  a  century  ago  to  the  people  of  New  England. 
Christians  in  America  hear  and  see  and  know  all  this  ;  and 
therefore  they  are  called  upon  in  Christ's  name  to  do  all  in 
their  power  to  lift  the  cloud  of  ignorance  and  superstition 
which  overhangs  the  heathen  world.  If  they  look  on  and 
send  no  help  out  of  their  abundance,  then  they  will  grow 
hard  and  selfish  and  faithless,  and  they  will  get  very  little 
comfort  or  satisfaction  out  of  their  wealth  because  they  are 
doing  nothing  to  make  other  lands  as  rich  and  prosperous  as 
their  own.  It  were  better  and  safer  to  be  poor  and  have  a 
heart  to  sympathize  with  the  suffering  than  to  be  rich  and 
do  nothing  to  help  the  needy. 

The  gospel  truth  is  intrusted  to  us,  not  to  keep  for  our  own 
personal  advantage  alone,  but  to  send  it  forth  upon  its  mes- 
sage of  mercy  to  lift  the  burdens  from  the  shoulders  of  the 
weary,  scatter  light  upon  the  path  of  the  darkened,  give  songs 
of  gladness  for  the  sighing  and  the  sorrows  of  the  millions 
who  walk  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death.  The  gospel 
has  made  the  American  people  rich  and  free  and  strong. 
Our  ancestors  were  more  degraded  and  brutal  in  their  super- 
stitions than  the  Hindus  or  the  Chinese  of  to-day.  The 
light  of    Christian  truth    alone    has    brought    us   our   great 


336  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

liberty  and  power  and  prosperity.  And  we  shall  be  hardened 
in  selfishness  and  enervated  in  sensuality,  as  a  people,  if  we 
have  the  source  of  all  our  blessings  to  give  to  millions  who 
need  it  as  much  as  our  fathers  did,  and  we  give  it  not. 

Trade  and  travel  have  brought  the  heathen  to  our  very 
doors.  It  is  almost  as  if  we  could  look  out  of  our  windows 
upon  their  wretchedness,  and  the  voices  of  gladness  in  our 
homes  were  mingled  with  the  cries  of  their  misery.  Every 
morning  paper  brings  intelligence  from  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
The  word  foreigner  is  fast  losing  its  meaning  and  the  lines 
of  neighborhood  encompass  the  globe.  If  the  intelligent 
and  prosperous  people  of  America,  the  richest  and  the  freest 
people  in  the  world,  sit  in  their  pleasant  parlors  and  ride  in 
their  palace  cars,  and  look  on  their  pleasant  pictures  and 
bright  landscapes,  and  give  no  help  to  millions  of  the  poor 
and  the  ignorant  in  India  and  China  and  Japan,  then  they 
will  grow  hard  and  selfish  and  cold-hearted,  incapable  of  en- 
joyment, dissatisfied  with  themselves  and  with  everything 
about  them.  They  will  begin  to  lose  faith  in  the  truths 
which  they  have  believed  ;  they  will  become  ungrateful  for 
the  blessings  which  they  have  received  ;  they  will  have  little 
peace  of  mind  and  heart  under  the  inevitable  trials  of  life, 
and  they  will  have  less  hope  for  anything  better  to  come 
when  life  is  done.  So  the  great  advantages  which  they 
possess  will  prove  a  curse  rather  than  a  blessing  because 
they  fail  to  use  them  in  the  service  of  God  and  for  the  good 
of  their  fellow-men.  And  so  the  great  inheritance  of  free- 
dom and  knowledge  and  salvation  will  be  taken  from  them 
and  given  unto  a  people  who  will  bring  forth  the  fruits  of 
faith  and  humanity,  gratitude  and  love. 


THE    CONSECRATION  OF  WEALTH.  337 

At  the  present  time  in  America  there  is  a  vast  accumula- 
tion of  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals.  It  is  said 
that  twenty-five  hundred  persons  own  one  half  of  the  prop- 
erty in  the  whole  country.  And  yet  many  of  them  seem  not 
to  know  how  to  get  the  highest  good  from  their  great  wealth. 
They  build  palaces  ;  they  put  money  enough  into  a  steam 
yacht  to  endow  a  college ;  they  give  a  head  cook  twice  as 
much  as  the  salary  of  the  president  of  a  university  ;  they 
expend  millions  in  pictures  and  jewelry  and  furniture.  They 
drive  fast  horses,  and  their  splendid  equipages  are  attended 
by  liveried  servants  and  lackeys.  They  give  great  dinners 
and  midnight  dances,  and  there  is  music  and  wine  in 
their  feasts.  Yet  they  get  tired  of  their  riches  and  their 
pleasures,  and  they  are  apt  to  say  that  neither  are  worth 
having.  They  are  surprised  and  mortified  that'  they  can  get 
so  little  out  of  their  great  wealth.  They  are  apt  to  suspect 
that  the  world  is  all  against  them  and  that  there  is  a  general 
conspiracy  to  rob  them  of  their  riches. 

They  need  to  catch  the  inspiration  of  Christian  benevo- 
lence from  those  who  find  the  highest  joy  of  life  in  giving 
and  working  for  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth.  They  need 
to  be  surrounded  by  people  who  are  rich  in  faith  and  happy 
in  self-denial  and  full  of  all  joy  and  peace  in  believing  that 
God's  kingdom  is  coming  and  that  it  is  a  great  privilege  to 
have  a  part  in  promoting  its  advance.  Let  there  be  ten 
millions  of  Christians  in  this  land  of  ours,  united  in  heart 
and  soul  in  the  work  of  establishing  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ  among  all  nations  ;  let  the  great  millionaires  have  to 
do  every  day  with  earnest,  intelligent,  strong  men  who  are 
wholly  committed  to  the  Great    Commission  to  disciple  all 


338  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

nations  and  in  the  shortest  possible  time  ;  let  rich  men  see 
that  Christians  find  great  joy  in  that  work,  and  that  they 
themselves  become  noble,  manly,  magnanimous,  day  by  day, 
because  they  are  devoted  to  the  interests  of  so  great  a  king- 
dom, and  they  are  working  in  harmony  with  the  one  infinite 
and  eternal  Mind  ;  let  all  the  professed  followers  of  Christ 
in  America  stand  out  before  the  world  as  wholly  devoted  to 
the  one  cause  for  which  Christ  gave  himself  to  the  cross,  — 
and  their  spirit  will  affect  the  public  mind,  correct  popular 
opinion,  enlarge  the  range  of  human  sympathy  and  charity, 
until  millionaires  feel  its  power  and  begin  to  look  for  new 
and  higher  uses  for  their  great  wealth.  So,  in  the  end,  the 
very  constraint  of  usage,  the  infectious  influence  of  Chris- 
tian example,  the  controlling  power  of  a  purified  public 
opinion,  shall  lead  rich  men  to  find  the  true  use  of  riches  in 
the  joy  of  giving  for  the  kingdom  of  Christ ;  and  so  shall 
come  to  pass  the  saying  of  the  prophet  that  in  the  good 
time  of  the  Messiah's  reign  kings  shall  minister  unto  him 
and  the  ships  of  merchants  shall  bring  gold  and  silver  from 
afar,  and  all  beautiful  things  shall  be  devised  and  given  to 
make  the  place  of  his  presence  glorious,  and  all  people 
shall  be  blessed  in  him. 


XXII. 

THE    HIGHER    EDUCATION. 

IN  all  Christian  lands  there  should  be  especial  institutions 
and  courses  of  study  established  for  the  purpose  of 
preparing  young  men  for  the  work  of  world-wide  evangeliza- 
tion. The  one  aim  should  be  ever  kept  in  view,  and  the 
students  should  be  animated  by  the  conviction  that  they  are 
to  prepare  themselves  to  take  up  the  highest  profession  ever 
pursued  by  man  in  this  world.  The  work  to  be  done  is  the 
greatest,  the  most  difftcult,  the  most  complex,  the  most  far- 
reaching  in  its  consequences,  of  any  ever  given  men  to  do. 
It  undertakes  to  accomplish  a  greater  revolution  than  any 
recorded  in  all  the  history  of  the  past.  It  would  change 
radically  and  permanently  the  faith,  the  character,  the  life, 
and  the  hope  of  uncounted  millions.  It  must  overcome  the 
strongest  appetites  and  passions,  the  most  inveterate  preju- 
dices and  superstitions,  the  traditions  and  customs  deemed 
the  most  sacred  :  it  must  enter  the  sanctuary  of  every  house- 
hold and  the  secret  place  of  every  soul. 

The  laborers  who  undertake  this  work  must  needs  be 
wise  and  considerate,  patient  and  courageous,  cheerful  and 
hopeful  in  the  face  of  every  difHculty,  unyielding,  uncon- 
querable in  the  face  of  all  opposition.  They  must  go  out 
into  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  and  they  must  learn 
to  live  with  people  of   strange  tongues  and   rude  manners 


340  MOKAVNG   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

and  dissolute  lives.  They  must  master  hard  languages  and 
accustom  themselves  to  hard  modes  of  travel  and  means  of 
living.  They  must  understand  the  best  means  of  preserv- 
ing life  and  strength  and  vitality  in  depressing  climates  and 
under  all  the  hindrances  and  discouragements  which  attend 
their  labor.  They  must  be  so  thoroughly  grounded  in  the 
doctrines  which  they  teach  that  nothing  can  shake  their 
faith.  They  must  be  so  fully  inspired  with  the  loftiest 
motives  that  nothing  can  turn  them  aside  from  their  sacred 
work.  They  must  be  so  firm  in  purpose,  so  fearless  in  heart, 
that  nothing  can  daunt  their  courage  or  weaken  their  resolu- 
tion or  quench  their  zeal.  They  must  be  so  well  versed  in 
science  and  history  and  the  general  literature  of  the  world, 
and  also  in  the  theories  and  speculations  of  critics  and  skep- 
tics and  philosophers,  that  they  can  hold  their  ground  with 
reason  and  constancy  in  contact  with  all  classes  of  men,  and 
carry  themselves  with  dignity  and  propriety  in  all  ranks  of 
society. 

To  take  such  a  stand  before  the  world  and  to  be  leaders 
in  the  greatest  work  of  the  age  and  of  all  ages,  missionaries 
must  needs  have  all  the  help  which  the  most  diligent  study 
and  the  most  careful  preparation  can  give.  They  must  be 
trained  and  educated  with  the  distinct  understanding  that 
theirs  is  to  be  the  most  sacred,  the  most  difficult,  and  the 
most  important  profession  which  any  man  can  undertake  in 
this  world.  They  should  be  put  under  the  instruction  of 
teachers  whose  whole  mind  and  heart  are  set  upon  carrying 
forward  the  grandest  enterprise  ever  intrusted  to  the  hands 
of  men  —  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  God  among 
men  of  every  race  and  nation  under  heaven.     Our  highest 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  34 1 

institutions  of  education  have  professorships  in  every  depart- 
ment of  literature  and  science  and  art.  The  most  brilliant 
men  spend  long  and  laborious  years  in  preparing  themselves 
to  occupy  the  chair  of  the  professor  in  teaching  some  branch 
of  human  learning  which  is  only  incidental  to  a  polite  educa- 
tion. Why  not  have  professorships  of  the  one  grand  science 
which  has  for  its  aim  and  purpose  the  highest  possible 
improvement  of  every  class  and  condition  of  men  on  the 
face  of  the  earth }  Why  not  set  the  most  learned,  the  most 
inspiring,  the  most  enthusiastic  men  that  can  be  found  in 
the  whole  land  to  teach  the  divine  art  of  saving  men  from 
the  delusions  of  superstition,  the  bondage  of  error,  and  the 
dark  ways  of  death  .'' 

Political  economy  proposes  to  increase  the  nation's  wealth 
by  teaching  the  laws  of  growth  and  decay,  of  supply  and 
demand,  of  production  and  consumption,  of  possession  and 
exchange,  of  invention  and  application  of  all  materials  and 
forces  in  the  earth  to  the  improvement  of  man's  condition  in 
this  world.  It  claims  high  rank  among  the  most  practical 
sciences  because  its  whole  aim  is  to  advance  the  material 
interests  of  the  individual  man  and  society  at  large.  It 
assumes  that  a  young  man  is  not  well  educated  for  practical 
life  unless  he  has  made  a  study  of  the  modes  and  means 
by  which  people  can  be  better  clothed,  housed,  and  supplied 
with  all  the  comforts  of  physical  well-being  in  this  present 
world.  Why  not  say  that  a  young  man  is  not  well  educated 
unless  he  has  made  a  distinct  and  devout  study  of  the  higher 
laws  of  faith,  duty,  benevolence,  happiness,  by  obedience  to 
which  the  nations  can  be  raised  to  the  highest  possible  con- 
dition of  wealth  and  prosperity  in  this  world,  and  at   the 


342 


MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


same  time  shall  be  made  heirs  of  infinite  riches  and  endless 
life  in  the  \vt)rld  to  come  ?  Why  not  say  that  the  young 
man  is  best  educated  who  is  best  prepared  to  go  out  into  the 
waste  places  of  the  earth  and  set  up  the  reign  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace  where  cruel  superstitions  and  wasteful  wars 
have  prevailed  over  all  the  people  for  ages  ?  Why  not  call 
him  the  best  educated  man  who  best  knows  how  to  deliver 
his  fellow-men  from  bondage  to  wasteful  appetites  and  pas- 
sions, and  bring  them  forth  into  the  glorious  light  and  liberty 
which  the  gospel  of  Christ  gives  to  nations  ? 

We  have  learned  men  to  teach  dead  languages,  dead 
literatures,  dead  antiquities  —  things  that  once  had  great 
power  on  the  earth  and  are  now  passed  away  forever.  We 
have  learned  and  enthusiastic  men  who  spend  large  sums 
of  money  and  expose  themselves  to  danger  and  weariness 
and  toil  and  sickness  and  death,  to  dig  up  the  foundations 
of  buried  cities  and  gather  up  relics  of  an  age  long  gone 
by.  Why  not  have  equally  learned  and  enthusiastic  men  to 
teach  the  living  and  immortal  interests  of  all  nations,  the 
personal  duties  and  responsibilities  of  all  classes  and  condi- 
tions of  men,  the  endless  destinies  which  are  to  be  decided 
by  the  character  and  conduct  of  men  in  time  .-•  Why  not 
have  special  schools  and  colleges  whose  sole  aim  shall  be  to 
prepare  young  men  to  go  out  to  the  waste  places  of  the  old 
world,  not  in  search  of  dead  antiquities  to  be  brought  home 
and  cased  up  in  museums  and  cabinets,  but  to  find  living 
men,  and  train  them  up  to  a  new  and  glorious  life,  surpass- 
ing the  highest  attainments  of  the  men  who  waged  war  and 
overthrew  cities  and  gained  great  earthly  fame  in  ancient 
time  ?     Why  not  train  our  young  students,  by  special  courses 


THE  HIGHER   EDUCATION.  343 

of  Study,  to  understand  that  the  present  is  the  great  age  of 
the   world;  that    living   men  of  to-day,   however  depressed 
their  condition,  are  of  more  consequence  than  all  the  dead 
relics    of   the    past?     One    Greek    shepherd,    watching    his 
flock  in  the  Troad,  or  climbing  the  rocks  about   Delphi,  or 
lurking  among  the  fallen  columns  about  Corinth  or  Argos 
or  Mycenae,  is  worth  more  to  the  living  world  and  the  hopes 
of  humanity  than  all  the  images  of  dead  gods  and  all  the 
rusted   shields,  swords,  and  helmets  ever  dug  up  from  the 
ruins  of  buried  cities  or  ever  stored  in  all  the  antiquarian 
museums  of  all  the  world.     The   traveler  who  gazes    upon 
the  Taj  of  Agra  by  sunlight  or  by  moonlight  is  expected  to 
go  into  raptures  of  admiration  over   the    wondrous   beauty 
of  the  dome  and  the   elaborate  finish  of  the  walls  and  the 
matchless  symmetry  of  the  whole  structure.     But   it  is  all 
dead,   cold  stone:    it   commemorates  an   age  of  oppression 
and  cruelty  :  it  perpetuates  a  story  of  passion  and  profligacy 
which  it  were  better  for  the  world  if  it  had  never  been  told. 
One  poor  pariah  watering  the  Taj  gardens  is  worth  more 
to  the  world  and  to  the  universe  of  immortal  beings  than 
the  gorgeous  tomb  which  cost  twenty   millions  of    money 
and  wasted  the  strength  and  labor  of  twenty  thousand  lives. 
The  poor  pariah  may  be  enlightened  and  raised  up  to  a  life 
that  shall  grow  greater  and  mightier  and  more  blessed  when 
the  Taj   has  become  as  the  dust  of    the  whirlwind  or  the 
withered  leaves  which  are  swept  before  the  storm.     If  men 
are  saved  from  ignorance  and  vice  and  superstition,  there 
will  be  no  want  of  works  of  art  surpassing  all  the  highest 
achievements  of   the  ancients,  and  the  age    of   the   future 
will  become  so  glorious  that  the  past  will  be  remembered 


344 


MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


only  with  wonder  at  its  folly  and  regret  for  its  wickedness. 
And  our  young  men  who  go  out  from  our  colleges  into  the 
world  armed  with  all  the  resources  which  education  can 
give  them  should  go  to  save  living  men,  not  to  gather  up 
the  relics  of  the  dead  past,  not  to  study  and  admire  works 
that  might  better  never  have  been  done. 

No  study  can  do  more  to  enlarge,  to  liberalize,  to  purify, 
and  to  culivate  the  minds  of  young  men  than  the  divine 
science  of  saving  the  lost  talents,  the  wasted  resources,  and 
the  fruitless  labors  of  men  of  all  races  in  all  lands.  No 
study  can  do  more  to  train  up  a  new  generation  of  brave, 
strong,  progressive  leaders  than  the  great,  the  -divine  science 
of  world-embracing  beneficence,  philanthropy,  charity,  which 
has  for  its  aim  the  highest  good  of  all,  the  fullest  enlighten- 
ment of  all,  the  everlasting  salvation  of  the  whole  human 
race.  Teach  the  young  men  at  the  very  outset  of  their 
education  and  all  the  way  on  that  there  is  ever  before  them 
one  supreme  interest,  so  urgent,  so  important,  that  all  others 
sink  into  insignificance  in  comparison  with  its  demands. 
Kindle  their  highest  ambition  to  do  their  best  in  their  brief 
day  and  generation  to  make  the  world  remember  them  grate- 
fully when  they  are  gone.  But  show  them  that  the  way  to 
be  held  in  everlasting  remembrance  is  to  work  with  God 
and  join  hands  with  all  of  God's  servants  in  the  endeavor 
to  fill  the  earth  with  righteousness  and  peace. 

The  world  has  had  great  statesmen,  commanders,  poets, 
orators,  merchants,  millionaires.  They  have  done  their  best 
in  their  line  of  work.  They  have  done  much  to  quicken 
mind,  inspire  lofty  thought,  incite  to  great  enterprise  and 
heroic  daring,  even  sometimes  in  behalf  of  a  failing  cause : 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION. 


345 


but  the  world  is  not  yet  instructed,  emancipated,  saved. 
The  old  wastes  of  the  past  are  still  going  on.  Millions  are 
toiling  all  their  life  long  and  getting  no  adequate  reward  for 
their  labor.  Millions  are  walking  in  darkness  through  the 
whole  length  of  life's  journey  and  never  finding  the  light. 
The  homes  of  millions  are  hovels  scarcely  fit  for  cattle. 
Millions  live  and  die  in  the  habitations  of  ignorance,  cruelty, 
and  superstition.  They  have  nothing  to  comfort  them  in 
their  great  sorrows,  no  helping  hand  put  forth  to  lighten 
their  burdens,  no  star  of  hope  shining  with  clear  light  to 
guide  their  steps  to  a  home  of  rest  and  peace. 

What  the  world  wants  now  is  men  who  have  been  trained 
and  fitted  for  a  higher  mission  than  princes  and  philosophers 
ever  bore  ;  men  who  go  forth  by  divine  appointment  through 
all  the  earth  to  save  the  lost,  to  reclaim  the  wandering,  to 
redeem  the  enslaved.  They  are  to  make  it  the  study  of 
their  lives  to  master  the  divine  art  of  doing  good.  They 
want  just  so  much  of  science,  history,  literature,  philosophy, 
as  will  help  them  in  the  endeavor  to  make  the  long,  dark 
reign  of  error  and  wickedness  and  superstition  in  the  earth 
give  place  to  universal  light,  peace,  prosperity,  righteousness. 
They  must  be  put  under  the  instruction  and  personal  influ- 
ence of  teachers  whose  one  supreme  object  is  to  fit  them 
to  take  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  with  them  into  all  the 
dark  places  of  the  earth  and  set  its  holy  light  to  shine  in 
every  human  habitation. 

The  medical  school  is  instituted  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
making  physicians,  the  law  school  for  making  lawyers,  the 
industrial  school  for  making  mechanics  and  artisans  of  every 
kind.      So   we   want   schools   of    the   highest   order,   manned 


346  MORNIA'G  LIGHT  /.V  MANY  LANDS. 

by  the  best  men  that  can  be  found  in  the  whole  land,  and 
concentrating  all  their  efforts  and  abilities  upon  the  one 
purpose  of  preparing  men  to  preach  the  good  news  of  God 
to  all  the  nations.  The  pupils  in  such  institutions  must  be 
fired  with  the  most  sacred  and  lofty  ambition  to  conquer  the 
whole  world  for  Christ.  All  their  courses  of  study  are  to 
be  chosen  with  one  object — to  fit  them  for  the  great  work 
of  world-wide  evangelization.  Mere  professional  students, 
cloistered  scholars,  ingenious  theorists,  daring  speculators 
in  philosophy  and  theology,  should  hav^e  no  place  in  the 
corps  of  instruction  in  seminaries  for  training  men  to  be 
leaders  in  God's  host  and  to  be  foremost  in  delivering  the 
divine  message  unto  the  nations.  Earnest,  devout,  practical 
men,  who  keep  themselves  in  daily  contact  with  the  living 
world,  are  needed  to  train  students  for  the  world's  most 
urgent  work  in  the  coming  age.  They  should  even  be 
men  whom  the  world  will  look  upon  as  beside  themselves 
with  the  one  absorbing  passion  for  the  world's  conversion 
to  Christ.  We  have  schools  and  colleges  enough  already 
for  general  education.  What  we  want  now  is  institutions 
for  the  special  training  of  men  to  carry  the  gospel 
through  the  world  and  put  an  end  to  the  long  and  wasteful 
reign  of  ignorance  and  vice  and  wrong. 

We  want— we  must  have — a  generation  of  Christian 
students  growing  up  into  strong  manhood  with  the  full, 
practical  conviction  that  the  greatest  question  now  before 
the  world  is  how  most  speedily  to  bring  all  nations  to  the 
acceptance  of  Christianity  as  the  one  only  divine,  universal 
religion,  equally  adapted  to  all  lands,  all  time,  all  races  of 
men.     Whoever  is  wisely,  laboriously  preparing  himself  for 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION.  347 

an  honorable  share  in  that  great  work  is  seeking  the  highest 
education,  is  preparing  for  the  most  glorious  career  open  for 
man  in  this  most  enlightened  and  progressive  age.  Who- 
ever fills  earnestly  and  faithfully  any  post  of  duty  which 
has  been  assigned  him  by  the  Prince  and  Captain  of  salva- 
tion, whoever  keeps  even  step  in  the  march  of  God's  host 
for  the  conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ,  is  sure  to  make  his 
life  a  joyous  and  glorious  success. 

The  highest  Christian  education  will  not  neglect  or  ignore 
any  branch  of  useful  knowledge  ;  but  it  will  strive  first  of 
all  to  know  Him  in  whom  are  hidden  all  the  treasures  of 
infinite  wisdom  and  knowledge  and  from  whom  cometh  forth 
the  light  which  lighteth  our  feet  into  the  way  of  peace.  It 
will  teach  all  that  can  be  known  about  God's  great  work 
in  the  world  and  all  that  can  be  known  about  the  deeper 
mysteries  of  mind,  spirit,  soul.  But  it  will  make  all  attain- 
ments in  art,  science,  literature,  language,  history,  instru- 
mental in  gaining  the  most  perfect  knowledge  of  Jesus 
Christ,  in  whom  are  infinite  riches  of  wisdom  and  power 
and  love.  The  highest  Christian  education  would  put  first 
and  foremost  in  all  its  courses  of  study  the  knowledge  of 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  the  way  of  life  and  salvation  open 
to  all  men  through  faith  in  him. 

In  this  enlightened  and  Christian  land  it  is  a  surprise  and 
a  shame  that  young  men  are  so  seldom  taught  to  put  Chris- 
tianity first  and  foremost  in  all  the  courses  of  study  that  dis- 
cipline the  mind  and  arm  the  student  for  the  great  conflict 
of  life.  They  should  be  made  to  see  at  the  very  outset  of 
their  course,  and  all  the  way  on,  that  Christianity  has  given 
the   stimulus,  the  activity,   the  progress,   the  new  life  and 


348  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

force  to  this  nineteenth  century.  Christianity  alone  gives 
us  the  hope  that  the  ages  of  the  future  will  be  better  than 
the  dark  and  evil  ages  of  the  past.  Christianity,  by  right 
of  divine  inspiration  and  by  right  of  long-tried  and  proved 
efficiency,  should  stand  before  all  sciences  and  civilizations 
as  the  leader  in  the  march  of  the  nations  to  a  truer  life  and 
a  better  age.  Our  American  students  will  miss  their  calling, 
lose  their  great  opportunity,  if  they  do  not  stand  forth,  full 
armed  and  fired  with  faith  and  love,  to  carry  the  religion  of 
Christ  to  all  the  nations.  It  will  be  to  little  purpose  that 
they  learn  science  and  philosophy  and  literature  and  art  and 
antiquities  and  dead  languages  and  criticism,  if  they  do  not 
learn  how  to  bring  men  to  the  acceptance  of  the  greatest 
gift  heaven  has  to  give  to  earth.  Of  all  young  men  in  the 
world  American  youth  are  most  sacredly  bound  to  carry 
Christianity  to  all  the  nations,  because  the  American  youth 
have  received  the  greatest  advantages  from  the  gospel 
themselves. 


XXIII. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    PRESS. 


'T^HE  great  enterprise  of  world-wide  evangelization  should 
-^  always  have  a  most  efficient  ally  in  the  Christian 
press.  We  have  a  few  special  missionary  magazines  ;  they 
speak  mostly  for  one  board  or  society,  and  their  circula- 
tion is  limited  to  the  constituency  of  the  organization  by 
which  they  are  published.  To  a  very  great  degree  they 
are  understood  to  be  begging  circulars  whose  main  object 
is  to  get  money,  and  the  cost  of  which  must  be  met  by 
drawing  upon  funds  given  for  the  general  cause.  Such 
magazines  always  labor  under  great  disadvantage,  because 
every  monthly  issue  must  carry  the  appeal  for  more 
money.  They  cannot  have  space  for  lengthened  argument 
and  illustration  and  appeal  in  behalf  of  the  one  great, 
world-embracing  commission  to  disciple  all  nations.  For 
the  most  part  they  are  obliged  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
their  readers  will  seek  general  information  in  regard  to 
the  condition  of  the  heathen  world  from  other  sources. 
They  must  report  the  labors  of  their  own  missionaries 
and  keep  them  ever  before  the  eyes  of  their  readers  so  that 
to  some  it  may  seem  that  there  is  no  other  force  in  the  field. 
What  is  wanted  is  an  open  avowal  on  the  part  of  all 
Christian  magazines,  reviews,  newspapers,  periodicals,  made 
constantly  in  every  variety  of  form,  that  the  one  great  mis- 
sion of  the  Church  in  all  its  branches  and   denominations 

349 


350  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

is  the  evangelization  of  all  nations.  Every  Christian  news- 
paper should  be  a  mission  advocate,  a  loud  and  earnest 
pleader  for  the  oppressed,  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the  lost, 
of  every  land  and  language.  It  should  stand  out  on  every 
page  of  the  Christian  periodical  that  it  is  enlisted  in  the 
world-wide  campaign  for  the  recovery  of  all  nations  from 
the  dominion  of  the  powers  of  darkness. 

We  have  political  newspapers  devoted  to  the  interest  of 
some  particular  party  or  policy  in  the  management  of  the 
affairs  of  government.  We  cannot  read  a  page  or  a  column 
without  seeing  at  once  to  which  party  the  paper  is  devoted. 
Through  all  the  year  it  carries  the  flag  of  its  party ;  it 
attacks  every  opposing  party  with  leaded  lines  and  length- 
ened columns.  Day  after  day,  week  after  week,  year  in  and 
year  out,  the  whole  staff  of  editors,  reporters,  contributors, 
correspondents,  is  gathering  up  arguments  and  evidences, 
facts  and  testimonies,  theories  and  speculations,  to  sustain 
their  policy,  to  elect  their  candidates,  to  lead  the  public 
mind,  and  to  rule  the  whole  land.  Millions  of  money  and 
the  time  and  labor  of  thousands  of  the  most  active  and 
brilliant  men  are  expended  upon  such  papers  every  year, 
and  to  support  measures  which  are  so  little  essential  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  country  that  good  and  wise  men  are  often 
found  taking  opposite  sides,  and  the  country  goes  right 
on  in  the  even  course  of  growth  and  prosperity  whichever 
party  prevails.  It  is  very  seldom  that  any  great  political 
party  is  animated  and  controlled  by  some  one  great,  under- 
lying principle  of  truth  and  justice  and  humanity — one 
which  is  equally  true  and  important  in  all  lands  and  for 
all  time.      Principles  and  parties  change,  but  the  contention 


THE   CHRISTIAN  PRESS.  35  I 

goes  on  ;  and  the  best  talent  is  given  to  tiie  support  of 
measures  that  affect  only  a  small  portion  of  the  people 
of  a  single  country  and  will  last  only  for  a  little  time. 

But  the  divine  commission  to  disciple  all  the  nations  is 
infinitely  more  important  than  the  issues  of  the  most  hotly 
contested  political  campaign.  It  takes  in  the  most  sacred, 
I  he  most  widely  extended,  the  most  lasting  interests  of 
humanity;  it  is  inspired  by  the  loftiest  and  the  purest 
motives ;  it  depends  for  its  success  upon  the  eternal  prin- 
ciples of  truth,  justice,  and  love  ;  it  is  not  confined  to  any 
one  country  or  age  or  race ;  it  aims  to  secure  the  highest 
welfare  of  all  people,  all  races,  all  ranks  in  human  society, 
through  the  whole  of  this  present  life  and  forever  in  the  life 
to  come.  If  it  be  reasonable  that  a  thousand  secular  jour- 
nals shall  be  pleading  every  day  in  the  year  for  a  local  and 
temporary  and  questionable  policy  in  government  affairs,  it 
surely  is  not  fanatical  for  a  hundred  Christian  newspapers  to 
plead  with  equal  earnestness  and  constancy  for  an  enterprise 
which  aims  at  the  removal  of  all  sin  and  misery  from  the 
face  of  the  earth,  and  which  will  be  complete  only  when  the 
wars  and  the  desolations  of  the  past  give  place  to  peace 
and  prosperity  among  all  nations.  It  is  not  bigoted  or  nar- 
row-minded or  irrational  that  we  should  crowd  the  columns 
of  religious  newspapers  all  the  year  through  with  facts  and 
testimonies  and  arguments  and  appeals  to  stir  up  Christians 
of  every  name  to  be  true  to  the  demands  of  their  Great 
Commission  and  carry  the  gospel  of  their  Master  through 
the  world.  They  should  always  assume  that  their  cause  has 
the  right  to  take  precedence  of  all  political  issues,  all  party 
policies,   all    questions    of   local    and    temporary  interest    to 


352  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

individuals  and  nations.  They  should  make  it  the  great  aim 
of  all  their  appeals  to  the  Christian  mind  of  the  people  to 
educate  them  into  a  right  understanding  and  full  accept- 
ance of  the  command  of  Christ  to  maintain  unceasing  war- 
fare against  the  principalities  and  the  powers  of  darkness 
until  light  and  liberty  become  the  inheritance  of  all  nations. 
Every  Christian  newspaper  should  put  itself  before  the 
world  as  an  advocate  of  that  one  great  movement,  just  as 
fully  and  constantly  as  any  political  newspaper  puts  itself 
forth  as  the  advocate  of  the  principles  and  the  measures 
of  its  party. 

The  growth,  the  power,  the  unity,  the  orthodoxy,  the 
sanctification  of  the  Church  at  home  can  be  best  promoted 
by  drawing  out  all  the  resources  and  activities  of  Christians 
in  labor  to  publish  the  gospel  to  all  the  world  and  secure 
the  conversion  of  all  nations.  The  Christian  publication, 
which  comes  into  the  family  or  finds  its  way  into  the  hands 
of  the  individual  Christian  every  week,  should  always  be 
a  gracious  and  instructive  messenger,  making  the  visit  on 
purpose  to  keep  the  word  of  the  Master  ever  in  mind  and 
set  his  claim  before  all  others.  It  is  not  true  to  its  name  as 
a  Christian  messenger  unless  every  number  does  something 
to  quicken  its  readers  in  faith  and  effort  for  the  entire  con- 
quest of  the  world  for  Christ.  It  should  strive  to  make  its 
readers  better  acquainted  with  their  duty,  their  privilege,  and 
their  ability  to  bear  an  honorable  part  in  the  greatest  revo- 
lution of  all  the  ages,  the  most  glorious  triumph  that  shall 
ever  be  sung  or  celebrated  on  earth  or  in  heaven.  The 
Christian  newspaper  should  encourage  and  stimulate  its 
readers  every  week  to  give,  speak,  influence,  pray  with  ever- 


THE    CHRISTIAN  PRESS.  353 

increasing  faith  and  fervor  for  the  speedy  accomplishment 
of  all  that  Christ  desires  to  have  done  on  earth,  all  that  must 
needs  be  done  before  God's  kingdom  will  fully  come  and  the 
rule  and  the  practice  of  obedience  to  God  shall  be  the  same 
on  earth  and  in  heaven.  So  its  whole  influence  shall  be  to 
animate  its  readers  with  the  most  glorious  hope  and  to  raise 
them  above  all  meanness  and  littleness  of  spirit,  by  keeping 
their  minds  and  hearts  fixed  upon  the  greatest  enterprise  of 
all  the  ages. 

Millions  of  people  in  the  most  Christian  lands  do  not 
understand,  and  because  they  do  not  understand  they  do  not 
believe  in  the  possibility  and  promise  of  a  reign  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace  among  all  nations.  They  are  not  fully  pos- 
sessed with  the  conviction  that  it  is  the  main  business,  the 
divine  commission,  of  the  Church  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
coming  of  the  King,  and  to  bring  in  the  glorious  day  of  his 
appearing,  in  power  and  spirit,  for  the  redemption  of  all 
nations  from  ignorance  and  superstition,  from  sin  and  death. 

The  sentiment  of  loyalty  to  the  King  must  be  cultivated : 
it  must  be  deepened  and  puriiied  by  self-denial  and  sacrifice ; 
it  must  be  commended  to  the  young  by  precept  and  by 
example.  The  devotion  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  to  the  Holy 
Hill  of  Zion  must  be  reproduced  and  enlarged  in  all 
Christians  until  each  follower  of  Christ  feels  that  it  were 
better  that  his  tongue  should  be  dumb  and  his  right  hand 
withered  than  that  he  should  forget  his  allegiance  to  Christ 
or  become  indifferent  to  the  advance  of  Christ's  kingdom  on 
the  earth.  All  Christians  must  be  trained  up  to  the  feeling 
that  the  Church,  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  is  their  own  dear 
country,  their  beloved  and  blessed  home,  and  that  they  can 


354  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

give  and  labor  and  suffer  and  die  for  it  with  greater  willing- 
ness and  devotion  than  the  patriot  suffers  and  dies  for  his 
country.  The  Christian's  country  is  the  whole  world,  and  it 
is  but  one  province  of  a  universal  and  an  everlasting  king- 
dom. To  give  and  labor  and  suffer  for  that  is  to  bear  a 
part  in  the  work  which  the  infinite  God  is  carrying  on 
throughout  all  worlds  and  through  endless  ages.  When 
Christians  are  fully  educated  into  that  great  mission,  their 
own  lives  will  be  great  and  blessed,  and  when  the  prince 
of  this  world  comes  to  them,  as  he  came  to  Christ,  he  will 
find  nothing  of  his  own  in  them,  as  he  found  nothing  in 
their  Master. 

This  is  not  a  fanatical  or  an  impracticable  sentiment  which 
I  am  urging.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  in  the  world  is  a 
reality,  not  a  fancy  or  a  fiction,  and  it  is  a  much  greater 
reality  than  the  kingdom  of  Britain  or  the  empire  of  Russia 
or  the  republic  of  America.  Devotion  to  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  is  just  as  rational  as  devotion  to  our  own  dear  country^ 
and  it  is  a  sentiment  as  much  loftier  than  patriotism  as  the 
welfare  and  freedom  of  all  nations  are  more  important  than 
the  prosperity  of  one  people,  the  reign  of  universal  and 
everlasting  righteousness  and  peace  is  more  important  than 
the  success  of  a  party  in  a  political  campaign. 

Men  of  the  greatest  intellect,  the  highest  culture,  and  the 
most  extended  resources  of  influence  and  property,  give 
themselves  night  and  day  with  quenchless  zeal  and  fiery 
devotion  to  the  support  of  a  party  platform  in  political 
strife.  Why  should  not  men  of  equal  culture  and  power 
and  resources  give  themselves  with  a  superior  and  more 
lasting  devotion  to  the  establishment  of  a  spiritual  common- 


THE    CHRISTIAN  PRESS.  355 

wealth  which  shall  bring  all  nations  into  one  harmonious 
and  happy  brotherhood  and  fill  every  land  with  the  abun- 
dance of  peace  ?  Why  should  not  eloquence  lift  up  its 
mightiest  voice  and  poetry  sing  its  loftiest  song  and 
science  offer  the  fruit  of  all  its  researches  and  wealth  open 
all  its  treasuries  and  art  build  its  grandest  works  and 
millions  of  people  unite  in  earnest  and  enthusiastic  effort 
to  break  the  chains  of  the  enslaved  of  all  nations,  to 
hasten  the  coming  of  the  great  era  of  light  and  liberty, 
when  the  earth  shall  bring  forth  abundance  for  the  supply 
of  every  want  and  the  wastes  of  war  and  wickedness  shall 
be  known  no  more  ? 

The  editor  of  a  religious  newspaper  or  magazine  stands 
at  the  head,  the  receiving  office  of  all  needed  information 
concerning  the  condition  of  the  world  and  the  advance  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  He  has  intelligence  constantly  coming 
to  him  from  all  quarters  of  the  earth  and  all  branches 
of  the  great  human  family.  He  stands  upon  his  high  post 
of  observation  to  take  up  the  word  which  God's  providence 
is  speaking  among  the  nations  and  to  pass  it  on  to  his 
readers  with  increasing  clearness  and  power  from  his  own 
mind.  He  is  called  to  his  responsible  position  that  he  may 
use  it  simply  and  solely  for  that  one  great  purpose:  the 
enlightenment  of  the  Christian  public  upon  the  one  subject 
which  is  of  more  importance  than  all  others  in  this  most 
enlightened  age,  the  full  and  speedy  evangelization  of  all 
nations.  He  is  at  his  post  as  a  watchman  on  the  walls  of  a 
besieged  city,  to  hear  the  sounds  and  descry  the  signs  of 
coming  danger.  And  his  is  the  still  more  grateful  task  of 
announcing  the  approach  of  the  King,  who  comes  in  triumph 


356  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

for  the  deliverance  of  the  nations  from  the  long  bondage  of 
ignorance  and  oppression,  of  sin  and  death.  Let  him  with- 
draw attention  from  all  other  sights  when  he  sees  the  hosts 
of  the  living  God  on  the  march,  and  he  hears  songs  of 
gladness  rising  from  myriads  of  voices  that  have  long  been 
accustomed  to  the  cry  of  sorrow  and  the  wail  of  despair. 
Let  him  continually  do  his  best  to  fire  the  hearts  of  his 
thousands  of  readers  with  a  sacred  and  divine  enthusiasm 
for  the  advance  of  the  one  cause  on  which  rests  all  our 
hope  of  the  coming  of  a  better  day  than  the  past  has 
ever  seen. 

We  have  papers  and  periodicals  in  abundance  to  tell  us 
of  wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  of  famines  and  plagues  and 
earthquakes  in  divers  places.  Political  and  commercial 
and  social  events  are  sure  to  be  reported  in  long  array  for 
all  to  read.  The  doings  of  congress  and  parliament  and 
conventions  and  caucuses  crowd  the  columns  of  morning 
and  evening  journals.  The  progress  of  industry  and  inven- 
tions and  arts,  letters  of  travelers  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth,  reports  of  lectures  on  all  subjects  of  popular  inter- 
est, accounts  of  social  doings,  amusements,  matches,  and 
theatrical  representations,  concerts,  excursions,  and  assem- 
blies all  over  the  land,  keep  a  thousand  printing  presses 
running  night  and  day.  The  poorest  buy ;  the  richest 
stop  in  the  pressure  of  business  to  read ;  everybody  is 
expected  to  know  what  the  papers  say ;  nobody  thinks 
an  intelligent  and  progressive  people  could  hold  their 
own,  much  less  make  advances  in  wealth  and  power, 
without  constant   reading. 

All  that  is  well  so  long  as  things  limited,  incidental,  and 


THE   CHRISTIAN  PRESS.  357 

temporary  are  kept  in  their  proper  place.  But  in  the  face 
of  all  such  conflicting-  and  diversified  interests  the  religious 
press  should  come  forward  as  the  advocate  of  interests  sur- 
passing all  others  in  importance,  in  extent,  and  in  authority. 
It  should  stand  forth  always  and  everywhere  as  the  fervid, 
untiring,  and  unyielding  promoter  of  a  revolution,  the  great- 
est, the  mightiest  in  all  the  ages  of  human  history,  in  all 
the  lands  of  the  earth  —  the  deliverance  of  immortal  millions 
from  the  dominion  of  darkness  and  their  triumphant  entrance 
into  the  kingdom  of  light.  The  religious  press  should  con- 
tinually bring  before  the  world  in  every  variety  of  form  the 
growing  evidences  that  the  kingdom  of  light  is  advancing, 
the  proclamation  of  everlasting  liberty  is  going  forth  in  every 
language  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth,  peace  is  showing  itself 
mightier  than  war,  truth  is  beating  down  the  hoary  forms  of 
error,  and  righteousness  is  exalting  itself  above  the  thrones 
of  iniquity  in  the  old  lands  of  the  East  as  well  as  in  the  new 
world  of  the  West.  Every  week  the  Christian  editor  should 
press  upon  his  readers  the  unrivaled  claims  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  over  all  human  policies,  over  all  earthly  interests. 
All  leading  articles,  editorials,  and  communications  in  the 
Christian  newspaper  should  constantly  maintain  that  Christ 
has  the  first  and  highest  claim  upon  property  and  time  and 
labor,  and  that  human  effort  and  possessions  will  never  bring 
so  great  a  reward  as  when  they  are  employed  most  earnestly 
in  his  service. 

No  Christian  newspaper  should  apologize  for  the  promi- 
nence which  it  gives  to  the  claims  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in 
every  issue  and  in  all  its  columns.  The  political  editor  does 
not  apologize  for  the  prominence  which  he  gives  to  the  plans 


358  MORX/XG  LIGHT  IN  M.4XY  LANDS. 

and  principles  of  his  party  every  day  in  the  year.  Why 
should  the  Christian  editor  make  excuses  for  pressing  upon 
his  readers  the  demands  of  the  greatest,  the  most  sacred 
enterprise  which  can  ever  engage  the  attention  of  men  in  all 
the  ages  ?  As  soon  apologize  for  the  presence  of  the  sunlight 
at  noonday,  or  for  the  falling  of  the  snow  in  winter,  or  for 
the  springing  of  the  grass  in  the  opening  year,  as  for  the 
light  of  the  Sun  of  righteousness  beaming  upon  the  darkened 
nations. 

Christian  ministers,  Christian  men,  Christian  newspapers, 
should  always  take  it  for  granted  that  God's  kingdom  must 
stand  first  in  all  public  and  private  appeals  for  money  and 
effort  and  time  and  consecration.  Fidelity  in  the  service, 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  cause  in  the  earth  is  so  great, 
ennobling,  and  true  in  its  influence  upon  character  that  it 
must  ensure  fidelity  and  devotion  in  all  the  relations  of  life. 
Generosity,  justice,  humanity,  in  all  the  transactions  of 
business  and  in  all  the  intercourse  of  society,  must  be  the 
natural  consequence  of  yielding  all  to  the  one  claim  which 
is  infinite  in  authority  and  promotive  of  infinite  good. 
Let  the  Christian  newspaper  be  considerate  and  helpful 
towards  all  enterprises  which  have  for  their  aim  the  lighten- 
ing of  human  burdens,  the  healing  of  human  sorrows,  the 
rewarding  of  human  labor.  But  always  let  it  be  seen  on 
every  page  of  its  numbers  that  the  full  coming  of  the  king- 
dom of  righteousness  and  peace  in  all  the  earth  is  the  one 
grand  consummation  which  it  seeks. 

What  has  been  said  in  this  chapter  should  not  be  under- 
stood as  an  attempt  to  throw  discredit  upon  the  many  and 
excellent  religious   papers  and    periodicals  which    we    have 


THE    CHRISTIAN  PRESS.  359 

already  in  the  field.  They  give  a  vast  amount  of  informa- 
tion and  instruction  with  every  issue  from  the  press.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  keep  up  the  tone  of  religious  intel- 
ligence and  activity  without  them.  They  are  all  laboring 
directly  or  indirectly  for  the  advance  of  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  among  the  nations.  I  am  amazed  at  the  amount  of 
knowledge,  experience,  sagacity,  and  hard,  plodding  toil 
which  the  managers  of  such  publications  put  into  their 
columns  week  after  week.  What  I  would  have  them 
do  in  addition  to  all  their  present  good  work  is  simply 
this  :  I  would  have  them  stand  more  explicitly  for  the 
Church  before  the  world,  as  a  campaign  paper  stands  for  a 
political  party  in  the  year  of  a  national  election.  I  would 
have  them  proclaim  in  every  variety  of  form  and  with  con- 
stant repetition  that  the  divine  mission  of  the  Church  is  to 
establish  the  religion  of  Christ  over  all  the  earth  and  cause 
it  to  be  accepted,  believed,  and  obeyed  among  all  nations. 
The  most  careless  reader  should  be  made  to  see  on  every 
page  of  our  Christian  periodicals  that  they  are  devoted  to 
that  one  object,  they  are  campaign  papers,  and  the  election 
which  they  advocate  is  the  voluntary  choice  of  Christ  as  the 
Lord  of  all  the  nations.  I  would  have  our  religious  papers 
bring  all  leading  articles,  correspondence,  and  communica- 
tions, to  bear  upon  that  one  theme,  the  conversion  of  the 
world  to  Christ.  If  they  did  so,  I  suppose  the  outside  world 
would  call  it  fanaticism,  bigotry,  narrow-mindedness,  illiber- 
ality,  and  all  that.  It  will  be  a  good  sign  when  the  world 
begins  to  talk  in  that  way  of  all  Christian  work  and  faith  and 
character.  There  can  be  no  greater  fairness,  liberality,  mag- 
nanimity, nobleness,  than  to  speak,  write,  labor,  give   for  the 


360  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

highest  interest,  the  supreme  welfare  of  all  nations,  all  races 
of  men  that  dwell  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth.  Let  all  who 
speak  for  the  Church  through  the  printed  page  proclaim  it 
openly  that  the  followers  of  Christ  stand  committed  to  the 
fulfillment  of  the  divine  commission  to  disciple  all  nations, 
and  that  they  are  determined  not  to  fail  in  securing  the 
election  of  their  Lord  and  Master  by  the  free,  voluntary 
choice  of  all  mankind.  The  more  openly  and  persistently 
that  proclamation  is  made,  the  better  it  will  be  for  both 
the  Church  and  the  world,  and  the  sooner  will  come  the 
grand  consummation  for  which  the  faithful  have  prayed 
for  eighteen  centuries  and  have  finished  their  course  in 
full  faith  that  it  would  surely  come,  and  yet  have  not  been 
permitted  to  see  the  longed-for  day. 


XXIV. 

THE    LAST    CRUSADE. 

THE  main  facts  concerning  the  command  of  Christ  to 
disciple  all  nations,  the  dark  and  hopeless  state  of  the 
heathen  world,  and  the  power  of  the  gospel  to  scatter  the 
darkness  and  bring  the  divine  day  are  well  known  by  us  all. 
What  is  wanted  is  some  most  effective  agency  to  arouse 
the  millions  of  Christians  of  our  country  to  new  activity, 
and  prevail  on  them  to  concentrate  their  efforts  and  their 
resources  upon  the  great  work  of  publishing  the  gospel  in 
all  languages  and  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  The  divine 
commission  to  disciple  all  the  nations  must  be  brought  before 
the  churches  with  such  constancy  and  urgency  that  no 
follower  of  Christ  can  fail  to  feel  the  force  of  the  appeal. 
It  must  be  preached  with  such  earnestness  and  tenderness 
and  fervor  to  Christians  as  we  expect  the  gospel  of  repent- 
ance and  faith  to  be  preached  to  sinners  for  their  salvation. 
The  most  thoroughly  tried,  efficient,  and  consecrated  men 
should  be  employed  to  go  constantly  to  and  fro  through  all 
the  churches,  preaching  and  proclaiming  the  last  great, 
divine  crusade  for  the  deliverance  of  all  nations  from  the 
thraldom  of  sin  and  superstition,  and  for  the  establishment 
of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  among  men. 

Centuries  ago,  one  enthusiastic  but  ill-informed  man 
aroused  all  Christendom  to  go  forth  in  battle  array,  by  the 
hundred  thousand,  for  the  deliverance  of  the  one  little  city 

361 


362  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

of  Jerusalem  from  the  dominion  of  the  Moslems.  How 
much  more  should  trained,  enlightened,  eloquent,  and  devoted 
men  in  our  day  stir  the  hearts  of  Christians  of  every 
name  and  denomination  with  appeals  for  the  enslaved  and 
degraded  of  every  land  and  nation,  for  the  deliverance  of 
hundreds  of  millions  from  the  bondage  of  sin  and  death ! 
The  fiery  and  impassioned  pleading  of  Peter  the  Hermit 
was  answered  by  shouts  from  countless  voices  —  "God  wills 
it,  God  wills  it !  "  Surely  with  much  more  truth  can  it 
be  said  now  that  God  wills  the  publication  of  the  gospel 
unto  every  kindred  and  tribe  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  He 
has  given  distinct  and  positive  command  that  his  Word  shall 
be  carried  to  all  nations.  This  divine  commission  is  the  one 
sacred  charge  which  has  been  laid  upon  the  Church  of  Christ 
these  eighteen  hundred  years,  and  it  has  never  yet  been 
fulfilled.  The  marching  orders  of  the  militant  host  have 
never  been  recalled,  and  they  never  were  more  fully  in 
force  than  in  our  time.  The  evidence  that  the  gospel  is  of 
God  and  is  fitted  to  answer  the  deepest  necessities  of 
individuals  and  of  society  has  been  increasing  from  century 
to  century  ;  it  never  was  so  complete  and  satisfying  as  it  is 
now,  in  the  full  blaze  of  the  nineteenth  century  light. 
Three  thousand  were  added  to  the  Church  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  and  that  was  thought  to  be  a  sufiEicient  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fitness  of  the  gospel  for  all  nations.  But  in  this 
single  land  of  ours  three  thousand  are  added  to  the  Church 
every  day  in  the  year,  and  the  Bible  has  been  translated  into 
twenty  times  as  many  languages  as  were  spoken  in  Jerusalem 
when  the  inspired  company  of  the  apostles  told  the  won- 
derful works  of  God  in  the  native  tongue  of  all  that  heard. 


THE  LAST   CRUSADE.  363 

The  power  which  goes  forth  with  the  missionary  to  give 
success  to  his  effort  in  lifting  up  the  most  degraded  races  of 
men  is  proved,  ten  thousand  times  over,  to  be  the  mightiest 
on  earth.  It  is  doing,  in  our  day  and  within  reach  of  our 
personal  observation,  greater  works  than  were  ever  done 
by  armies  or  legislators  or  philosophers.  It  takes  whole 
libraries  of  Christian  literature  to  tell  how  great  things  the 
gospel  has  done  and  is  still  doing  among  the  nations  to 
bring  the  reign  of  righteousness  and  peace  in  all  the  earth. 

But  the  churches  in  the  most  Christian  lands  do  not  know 
these  facts,  or,  knowing  them  in  some  degree,  they  do  not 
grasp  the  fullness  of  their  meaning,  they  do  not  feel  their 
power.  To  rouse  their  slumbering  zeal  and  strengthen  their 
feeble  faith  and  bring  into  the  field  their  reserves  of  power 
in  men  and  money,  the  divine  command  must  be  taken  up 
and  preached  by  the  most  eloquent  and  devoted  in  every 
Christian  land.  Let  diligent  search  be  made  for  the  best 
men  to  enforce  the  claims  of  the  divine  commission,  and, 
when  they  are  found,  let  them  have  every  facility  to  prepare 
themselves  by  study  and  travel  and  observation  to  preach 
the  last  great  and  divine  crusade  for  the  deliverance  of  all 
nations  from  bondage  to  man's  great  foe.  Let  them  be  as- 
sured that  the  churches  are  ready  to  stand  by  them  in  their 
work  as  they  go  forth  throughout  all  the  country,  visiting 
cities  and  villages  and  private  homes,  arousing  the  indif- 
ferent, directing  the  zeal  of  the  awakened,  encouraging  the 
faint-hearted,  and  always  and  everywhere,  by  instruction,  by 
argument,  by  persuasion,  and  by  testimony,  endeavoring  to 
fill  the  minds  of  all  Christians  with  one  desire  and  purpose 
to  bring  all  nations  to  the  acceptance  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus. 


364  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

When  a  great  political  party  lays  its  plans  to  carry  a 
national  election,  it  selects  the  best,  the  most  persuasive  and 
eloquent  speakers,  it  sends  them  out  all  over  the  land  to 
explain  its  principles,  to  inform  the  people  in  regard  to  the 
issues  at  stake,  and  to  commend  its  candidates  to  the  suf- 
frages of  all.  The  whole  country  is  flooded  with  printed 
documents  and  popular  appeals  ;  vast  sums  of  money  are 
raised  and  freely  expended  ;  agents  and  committees  and 
orators  and  private  citizens  labor  and  endure  fatigue  and 
watching  night  and  day.  The  election  is  the  subject  of 
conversation  in  the  house,  the  shop,  and  the  field,  every  day 
of  the  week  and  in  every  place  where  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together.  It  may  indeed  make  very  little  percep- 
tible difference  with  the  country  at  large  how  the  election 
goes ;  and  yet  each  party  is  ready  to  move  heaven  and 
earth  to  secure  the  choice  of  its  own  candidate. 

But  the  Christian  commission  sets  before  us  a  cam- 
paign which  is  to  embrace  all  nations,  which  will  affect  the 
deepest  interests  of  every  individual  ;  and  it  will  be  com- 
pleted only  by  the  establishment  of  a  perfect  law  of  right 
and  liberty  and  the  bringing  in  of  a  new  era  of  abundance 
and  prosperity  over  all  the  earth.  The  principles  at  stake, 
the  destinies  to  be  decided,  are  the  greatest,  deepest,  widest 
that  can  ever  influence  the  human  mind  or  control  human 
conduct.  The  welfare  of  uncounted  millions  on  the  earth 
and  the  condition  of  immortal  millions  in  the  endless  future 
must  be  determined  by  the  success  or  the  failure  of  the 
great  campaign  against  the  principalities  and  powers  of 
darkness.  Everything  which  needs  to  be  said  in  carrying 
forward  this  great,  world-wide  contest,  everything  fit  to  be 


THE   LAST   CRUSADE.  365 

done,  everything  required  to  be  given,  is  noble,  truthful, 
profitable,  and  glorious  to  the  utmost  degree.  Whoever 
undertakes  to  preach  the  great  crusade  for  the  conversion 
of  the  world  only  needs  to  put  forth,  in  truthful  and  fitting 
words,  arguments  that  are  built  upon  the  foundation  of 
eternal  facts,  principles,  doctrines,  consequences.  What- 
ever he  says  now,  in  earnest  and  solemn  appeal  to  the  hearts 
of  men,  to  enlist  their  interest  in  the  great  crusade,  will  be 
regarded  only  as  more  urgent,  truthful,  and  important  the 
more  thoroughly  it  is  weighed  in  the  balances  of  a  good 
understanding,  the  more  it  is  subjected  to  the  light  of 
clearer  knowledge  and  larger  experience  in  the  growing 
faith  and  better  life  of  the  future. 

Now  let  the  Church  find  out  its  strongest,  best  informed, 
most  enthusiastic,  most  devoted  men,  and  let  them  be  spe- 
cially commissioned  to  preach  a  nineteenth  century  crusade 
for  the  deliverance  of  all  nations  from  the  bondage  of    sin 
and  superstition.     Let  them  make  it  a  study  to  understand 
the  high  calling  to  evangelize  the  whole  world.     Let  them 
lay  their  hearts  open  to  the  divine  power  of  the  Great  Com- 
mission and  the  divine  promise  of  almighty  help  to  fulfill  its 
demands.     Then  let  them  go  and  pour  out  all  the  fervor  of 
their  hearts  and  all  the  eloquence  of  inspired  lips  in  the  en- 
forcement of  the  theme.     Let  them  compass  the  whole  land, 
east,  west,  north,  south,  holding  conventions,  preaching  in 
churches,  addressing  schools,  colleges,  seminaries,  everywhere 
unfolding  to  the  full  extent  of  their  power  and  resources  the 
claim  of  Christ's  cause  and  kingdom  above  every  other  clami. 
Let  them  not  be  confined  to  any  one  denomination  or  con- 
nection of  Christians.     Let  it  be  enough  to  secure  them  a 


366  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

welcome  that  they  have  taken  it  upon  themselves  to  arouse 
all  Christians  to  the  one  great  duty  of  publishinc;;  the  gospel 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Let  the  churches  be  free  as  ever 
to  conduct  worship,  carry  on  missionary  work  in  accordance 
with  their  own  preferences  and  established  usages,  but  let 
all  churches  alike  be  open  to  welcome  the  preachers  of  the 
crusade  against  the  powers  of  darkness  that  have  long  held 
the  nations  in  captivity.  Let  all  alike  receive  the  great 
command  of  Christ  as  the  marching  orders  of  the  Prince 
and  Captaio  of  salvation.  Let  them  act  and  organize,  each 
in  its  own  way,  and  go  forth  under  his  banner  to  find  the 
portion  of  the  field  which  is  most  in  need  of  recruits  and  is 
most  hardly  pressed  by  the  common  foe.  Let  it  be  counted 
as  essential  to  good  and  reputable  standing  in  any  church 
that  one  shall  give,  labor,  pray  for  the  evangelization  of  the 
whole  world.  Let  the  preachers  of  the  great  crusade  fill 
the  hearts  of  young  and  old  with  fiery  zeal  for  the  great  and 
final  campaign,  until  the  old  crusading  cry,  "  God  wills  it ! " 
shall  rise  like  the  shout  of  nations  in  every  Christian  land. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  great  missionary  enterprise  will 
never  be  put  in  its  right  place  before  the  Church  and  the 
world  until  the  best  and  fittest  men  we  have  among  us  take 
it  upon  themselves  to  preach  a  new  and  universal  crusade 
against  Satan's  dominion  in  heathen  lands.  They  must  give 
themselves  to  such  preaching  as  fully  as  evangelists  give 
themselves  to  preaching  for  revivals  and  for  the  conversion 
of  men  in  the  home  land.  No  one  can  have,  or  desire  to 
have,  a  mightier  or  a  more  inspiring  theme.  It  gives 
ample  scope  for  the  clearest  reasoning,  the  largest  learning, 
the  most  commanding  eloquence,  and  the  most  tender  and 


THE  LAST   CRUSADE.  367 

impassioned  appeals.  To  conquer  the  world  by  force  of 
arms,  as  Alexander  fancied  he  had  done,  were  nothing  to  be 
thought  of  in  comparison  with  the  establishment  of  the  reign 
of  righteousness  and  peace,  prosperity  and  happiness,  among 
all  the  peoples  of  the  earth.  If  the  destruction  of  thousands 
of  lives  in  war  confers  the  title  of  "  Great  "  upon  the  de- 
stroyer, much  more  is  that  distinction  deserved  by  him  who 
brings  the  gift  of  life  to  uncounted  millions  and  teaches  them 
to  live  and  rejoice  in  the  gift  forever. 

The  kingdom  of  the  mightiest  conqueror  lasts  but  a  little 
time ;  it  begins  with  violence  and  wrong,  it  is  supported  by 
force  and  falsehood,  it  ends  in  disaster  and  dishonor.  The 
kingdom  of  Christ  shall  stand  when  all  earthly  thrones  are 
cast  down  and  all  the  structures  of  human  pride  are  brought 
to  desolation.  Its  first  message  is  peace,  its  mightiest  wea- 
pon is  love,  it  is  sustained  by  truth  and  righteousness,  it 
gives  life  and  liberty  to  all  who  submit  to  its  sway.  For 
such  a  kingdom  the  most  eloquent  can  plead,  the  most 
learned  can  reason,  the  most  devout  can  pray.  The  poet 
and  the  historian,  the  orator  and  the  philosopher  will  seek  in 
vain  for  a  loftier  theme  than  that  which  inspired  the  angel 
song  of  Bethlehem  and  which  was  confirmed  and  consecrated 
in  the  command  of  Christ  to  carry  the  glad  tidings  of  the 
heavenly  messengers  to  every  nation. 

It  costs  the  lives  of  millions  of  men,  m-ore  millions  of 
money,  years  and  ages  of  toil  and  suffering  and  sacrifice,  to 
create  and  sustain  one  of  the  great  kingdoms  of  the  earth. 
Yet  all  the  way  through  its  history  are  deeds  of  violence 
and  blood.  Sometimes  its  greatest  glory  comes  from  the 
greatest  crime.     The  poor  are  trodden  down  under  the  iron 


368  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

heel  of  war,  the  wages  of  the  laborer  go  to  enrich  the  idle 
and  the  oppressor,  all  departments  of  human  industry 
are  taxed  that  a  few  may  liv^c  in  luxury  and  dissipation. 
Christ  comes  to  save  life,  not  to  kill.  Wherever  his  word  is 
most  fully  received,  riches  accumulate,  fields  bring  forth 
most  abundantly,  life  is  prolonged,  home  is  sacred ;  its 
greatest  glory  comes  from  doing  good  to  all.  Surely  for  the 
establishment  of  such  a  kingdom  the  mightiest  voices  should 
plead,  the  greatest  gifts  should  be  willingly  given,  afflictions 
and  losses  and  martyrdoms  should  be  bravely  and  cheerfully 
borne.  To  put  its  high  demands  and  its  exceeding  great 
and  precious  promises  fitly  before  the  world,  we  want  the 
most  eloquent  to  speak,  the  strongest  to  toil,  the  bravest  to 
endure,  and  the  truest  to  hope.  The  orator,  who  can  fire  the 
hearts  of  his  hearers  with  lofty  enthusiasm  when  describing 
the  struggles  and  sacrifices  of  a  single  people  in  asserting 
their  independence  against  a  foreign  power,  should  be  still 
more  eloquent  when  urging  the  claims  of  a  kingdom  under 
which  all  the  nations  shall  dwell  together  in  peace  as  one 
family,  and  the  wastes  of  war  shall  be  known  no  more.  The 
merchant  or  the  millionaire,  who  gives  his  thousands  to 
found  a  library  or  build  a  college  or  a  monument,  should  give 
much  more  freely  to  send  out  messengers  who  shall  fill  all 
the  habitations  of  men  with  light,  and  drive  the  demons  of 
ignorance  and  superstition  to  the  covert  of  darkness.  The 
philanthropist,  who  would  relieve  all  human  suffering,  should 
support  a  commission  which  is  sent  out  into  all  the  earth  to 
comfort  all  that  mourn,  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  and 
to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives  of  every  tribe  and  nation. 


XXV. 


RECRUITING    OFFICES. 


EVERY  Christian  church  should  be  a  recruiting  office  to 
engage  volunteers  for  world-wide  and  lifelong  service 
in  the  great  missionary  campaign  ;  every  church  should  hold 
itself  responsible  to  contribute  its  quota  to  fill  up  the  ranks 
and  enlarge  the  host  already  in  the  field  contending  with  the 
powers  of  darkness.  In  every  church  there  should  be  a  con- 
stant, earnest,  and  businesslike  presentation  of  the  divine 
call  to  disciple  all  the  nations.  There  should  be,  not  simply 
once  or  twice  a  year,  a  fervid  exhortation,  an  impassioned 
appeal,  from  an  agent  or  a  returned  missionary.  The  Church 
as  a  body  should  take  up  the  business  of  gathering  recruits 
out  of  its  own  ranks  and  training  them  for  the  Master's 
service  in  whatever  portion  of  the  world  field  they  are  most 
needed  and  can  do  most  to  urge  forward  the  one  great  cam- 
paign. The  preaching  and  the  prayer,  the  conferences  and 
the  contributions,  the  Sunday-school  and  the  social  gather- 
ings of  old  and  young,  should  all  aim  to  bring  out  the 
influence,  the  property,  and  the  vital  force  of  the  church  most 
effectively  for  the  advancement  of  the  one  great  cause.  Let 
each  church  choose  the  means  and  the  methods  best  adapted 
to  the  place,  the  people,  and  the  usage  of  the  denomination 
to  which  it  belongs,  and  then  make  every  measure  and  effort 
tell  in  favor  of  the  one  desired  result  :  the  active  and  full 


370  MOAWLVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

committal  of  all  its  membership  to  the  demands  of  the  world- 
wide compaign. 

The  Church  itself,  with  all  its  societies,  bands,  brother- 
hoods, Sunday-schools,  and  committees,  should  be  a  united 
and  strong  organization,  whose  constant  aim  and  effort  is  to 
awaken  interest,  to  collect  and  diffuse  information,  to  raise 
money,  to  educate  the  young,  and  to  train  up  candidates  for 
the  mission  field  or  for  home  service  in  support  of  those  at 
the  front.  All  followers  of  Christ  should  help  each  other  by 
precept  and  by  example  into  the  assured  and  settled  belief 
that  the  highest  and  best  use  of  any  property,  business,  or  pro- 
fession is  to  accomplish  what  Christ  would  have  done.  The 
most  successful  man,  the  man  who  goes  out  in  the  world 
with  the  strongest  assurance  that  he  has  gained  the  truest 
and  highest  purpose  of  living,  is  the  man  who  has  given  him- 
self most  fully  to  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
among  men. 

Faith  in  that  one  great  practical  fact  of  life  and  duty  is 
not  apt  to  come  all  at  once,  nor  by  one  act  of  will.  In  some 
cases  it  may  even  cost  one  a  lifelong  discipline  and  educa- 
tion to  get  it.  It  is  apt  to  come  hard  when  it  is  not  begun 
early.  Therefore  it  should  be  inculcated  in  the  minds 
of  the  young  when  they  are  most  susceptible  to  impressions 
of  any  kind.  In  the  Christian  family  and  in  the  Sunday- 
school  the  true  idea  of  Christian  living  and  what  consti- 
tutes success  in  life  should  be  nursed  tenderly,  lovingly, 
patiently,  by  teachers  and  parents,  in  order  that  it  may  be- 
.  come  a  steady,  natural,  and  strong  growth,  so  thoroughly 
incorporated  with  the  feelings  and  the  faith  of  the  full-grown 
man  that  it  shall  cost  him  no  struggle  ;  he  will  need  no  fervid 


RECRUITING    OFFICES.  37  I 

appeal  to  prevail  on  him  to  give  his  time  and  labor  and  heart 
to  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  on  earth.  He 
accepts  it  as  his  mission  as  easily  as  the  bird  takes  to  the 
air  with  its  wings  and  the  fish  finds  its  congenial  home  in  the 
water.  Such  should  be  the  prevailing  spirit  in  every  Chris- 
tian church.  Such  should  be  its  main  safeguard  against  all 
false  doctrine,  all  falling  away  to  the  world  ;  its  full  and  hearty 
acceptance  of  the  command  of  Christ  to  disciple  all  nations. 
When  that  command  is  ignored  or  little  thought  of,  the 
church  may  have  a  name  to  live,  but  it  has  lost  the  life  of 
Him  who  came  to  give,  and  to  give  most  abundantly. 

In  time  of  war,  when  the  very  existence  of  the  nation 
is  imperiled,  recruiting  offices  are  opened  everywhere ;  meet- 
ings are  held  at  all  hours ;  individuals  of  all  ages  are  expected 
to  declare  themselves  ready  to  give  and  to  do  whatever  they 
can  for  the  common  cause;  women  and  children  join  with 
strong  men  in  singing  songs  of  devotion  to  country;  the  flag 
is  hung  out  from  towers  and  steeples  and  chimney  tops ;  ser- 
mons are  preached,  lectures  are  given,  entertainments  are  set 
forth,  fairs  are  held,  morning  and  evening  newspapers  are 
crowded  with  communications  every  day,  and  all  bearing 
upon  the  peril  of  the  country  and  the  call  upon  every  citizen 
to  come  to  its  defense  in  whatever  way  he  can.  All  that  is 
done  to  ward  off  the  danger  which  comes  upon  one  people, 
to  deliver  one  nation  from  loss  and  dishonor. 

But  we  are  summoned  by  the  Prince  and  Captain  of  salva- 
tion to  take  part  in  a  contest  which  involves  the  dearest 
and  the  most  sacred  rights  and  hopes  and  privileges  of  all 
nations.  The  Church  is  enlisted  in  a  campaign  which  will 
be   complete  only  when   the  kingdoms   of   the   whole  world 


372  MORXIXG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  I.AXDS. 

arc  brought  into  harmony  with  the  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace.  We  are  summoned  to  a  warfare  which  is 
waged  against  wickedness,  ignorance,  superstition,  bondage, 
degradation  of  humanity  of  every  kind  in  every  land.  By 
virtue  of  our  profession  as  Christians  we  have  taken  on  our- 
selves a  solemn  covenant  never  to  cease  from  our  efforts, 
never  to  lay  down  the  weapons  of  our  warfare,  until  Christ 
is  accepted  as  the  rightful  and  the  universal  King.  It 
should  follow  as  a  matter  of  course  that  we  resort  to  the 
most  appropriate  and  effective  plans  and  expedients  for 
drawing  all  classes,  young  and  old,  rich  and  poor,  into  the 
support  of  the  one  great  cause — the  divine  and  heaven- 
directed  enterprise  of  rescuing  all  nations  from  the  bondage 
of  sin  and  superstition.  Children  in  families  and  Sunday- 
schools  should  be  taught  early  and  constantly  that  the 
gospel  of  Christ  is  the  only  effective  remedy  that  has  ever 
been  found  for  ail  the  evils  that  are  in  the  world,  and  that 
they  can  all  do  something,  many  of  them  can  do  much,  to 
bring  the  gospel  within  the  reach  of  the  whole  human 
family.  In  doing  their  best  for  that  one  great  object,  they 
are  undertaking  the  greatest,  the  most  honorable,  and  the 
most  needed  work  that  they  can  ever  set  hands  to,  they  can 
ever  fix  their  hearts  upon.  They  are  cooperating  with  God, 
with  all  the  excellent  of  the  earth  and  with  all  the  highest 
powers  in  the  universe,  in  establishing  a  righteous  and  an 
everlasting  kingdom  on  the  earth.  The  highest  ambition, 
the  most  fervent  hopes,  the  most  sacred  aspirations  of  the 
young  should  be  fixed  earnestly  and  constantly  on  this,  the 
highest  work  which  the  infinite  God  can  give  them  to  do 
in  their  lifetime  —  the  only  work  which  will  give  them  joy 


RECRUITING    OFFICES.  373 

and  honor  when  they  look  back  from  the  other  life  upon  the 
toils  and  conflicts  of  this  world. 

If  we  accept  the  Bible  as  a  revelation  from  God,  then  the 
one  only  great  event  of  the  future  which  we  can  be  sure  of 
is  the  fact  that  the  whole  world  is  to  become  subject  to 
Christ,  and  his  will  is  to  become  the  accepted  law  of  nations. 
That  being  so,  our  young  people  should  be  trained  up  to 
make  all  their  plans  and  choices  for  occupation  in  life  in 
view  of  that  fact.  They  must  learn  to  put  forth  their 
efforts  and  to  cherish  their  hopes  and  to  train  their  minds 
so  as  to  be  in  sympathy  with  the  divine  tendency  of  events 
and  so  as  to  be  prepared  to  take  part  in  the  great  age  of  the 
future  as  fast  as  it  comes  on  in  their  day.  It  is  a  sad  thing 
to  be  behind  the  times,  or  to  be  left  out,  as  if  of  no  conse- 
quence, when  God  is  leading  the  times  on  to  one  great  con- 
summation which  shall  fill  the  whole  earth  with  light  and 
peace.  And  of  all  others,  children  should  be  trained  to  join 
the  march  of  the  ages  and  nations  towards  a  higher  and  a 
better  life.  If  they  are  taught  in  the  schools  to  master  the 
whole  circle  of  the  sciences  and  to  take  in  the  whole  range 
of  literature  and  art  and  history,  still  they  will  be  limited 
and  contracted  in  their  views  and  unused  to  the  freest  and 
highest  thought  unless  they  have  learned  to  set  the  king- 
dom of  God  first  in  authority,  in  promise,  and  duration. 

Often  the  most  persuasive  argument  to  induce  young  and 
old  to  begin  the  Christian  life  themselves  is  the  call  to  help 
others  into  the  true  path.  The  attempt  to  teach  others  the 
jrreat  and  sacred  truths  of  divine  revelation  is  often  the 
means  by  which  the  teacher  himself  learns  his  need  to 
be   taught   of    God.     The  opportunity  to  give  and  labor  to 


374  MORiVLVG  LIGHT  LV  MAA'Y  LANDS. 

sustain  the  great  missionary  cause  in  the  ends  of  the  earth 
leads  many  to  entertain  a  higher  and  truer  estimate  of  the 
value  of  Christian  institutions  and  instructions  in  the  home 
land.  The  best  missionaries  to  preach  the  gospel  among 
the  heathen  are  those  who  have  grown  up  from  childhood 
into  the  full  and  intelligent  conviction  that  the  command  of 
the  Master  is  their  divine  commission  and  that  they  are  to 
go  to  their  work  as  directly  under  his  guidance  and  protec- 
tion as  the  apostles  went  preaching  the  Word  in  their  day. 

In  all  churches  the  young  people  should  come  together 
often  and  talk  and  read  and  inquire  and  pray  about  the  one 
great  event  which  is  to  take  place  in  the  age  to  come,  the 
one  great  enterprise  which  demands  their  most  earnest 
effort,  stimulates  their  most  sacred  ambition,  awakens  their 
highest  hope  —  and  that  is,  the  establishment  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace  among  all  nations.  They  should  be  filled 
with  the  expectation  of  the  coming  of  that  day  and  with 
the  desire  and  ambition  to  bear  a  part  in  labors  and  sacri- 
fices which  will  hasten  its  coming.  They  should  be  edu- 
cated into  the  feeling  that  they  will  lose  the  chief  aim  of 
life,  the  one  grand  object  best  worth  living  for,  if  they  do 
not  take  an  honorabljj  part  in  the  great,  world-wide  move- 
ment, which  is  led  on  by  divine  providence  and  which  will 
be  completed  in  the  full  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
on  earth.  The  Sabbath  day  preaching  from  the  pulpit 
through  all  the  year,  the  conversation  of  the  Christian 
household,  the  tone  of  exhortation  and  prayer  in  the  meet- 
ings of  the  week,  should  impress  young  people  with  the 
conviction  that  Christians,  above  all  things  else,  believe  in 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  that  they  never  will  be  satisfied 


RECRUITING   OFFICES. 


375 


with  the  order  of  things  about  them  till  God's  will  is  done 
on  earth  by  men  in  every  condition  of  life  as  it  is  done  by 
the  perfect  and  the  blessed  in  heaven. 

In  all  churches  and  Christian  homes  there  should  be 
continual  teaching  and  practice  of  the  divine  service  of 
self-denial,  the  godlike  excellence  of  giving  and  toiling  and 
suffering  as  Christ  did,  for  the  good  of  the  poor,  the  help- 
less, and  the  unworthy.  Early  let  the  child  be  taught  to 
deny  himself  common  pleasures  and  indulgences  for  the 
higher  pleasure  of  giving  for  the  relief  of  the  needy  and 
for  the  coming  of  the  day  when  all  people  shall  live  as  one 
brotherhood  in  Christ  and  all  want  shall  be  supplied.  Let 
the  child  be  made  to  understand  that  the  demand  for  such 
service  comes  from  his  greatest  and  best  Friend  and  that 
it  is  for  the  greatest  and  best  cause,  and  that  therefore  it  is 
one  which  he  cannot  honorably  or  rightfully  deny.  If  he 
does  deny  it,  the  tone  and  the  standard  of  his  daily  living 
will  be  let  down  as  far  as  from  heaven  to  earth  ;  the  ransre 
of  his  thought  and  aspirations  will  be  contracted  from 
infinity  to  one  brief,  aimless,  and  unsatisfactory  life. 

All  Christian  parents  should  talk,  in  the  presence  of  their 
children,  and  with  them,  about  Christian  life  and  duty. 
Christian  hope  and  reward,  with  such  a  tone  and  manner 
of  freedom  and  reality  that  the  children,  without  knowing 
it,  will  be  educated  into  the  missionary  spirit,  trained  up  to 
the  desire  and  the  expectation  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom 
of  God.  The  reality  and  the  demands  of  that  kingdom 
should  be  presented  with  such  clearness,  truthfulness,  and 
sincerity  that  there  shall  be  no  such  thing  as  exaggeration, 
no  overwrought  representation,  nothing  different  in  manner 


3/6  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

from  the  everyday  talk  of  the  household.  The  child  knows 
very  well  in  what  tone  and  spirit  the  parents  talk  about  the 
house  and  home  and  family,  work  and  study  and  amusement, 
business  and  society,  and  the  events  of  the  day.  Let  him 
hear  his  parents  talk,  with  the  same  air  of  sincerity  and 
honesty,  about  the  things  that  concern  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Then  he  will  grow  up  to  mature  years  in  full  faith  that  the 
success  and  joy  of  his  life  must  be  measured  by  the  amount 
of  service  which  he  renders  in  carrying  forward  God's  cause 
on  the  earth.  Thus  the  young  will  be  trained  for  the  service 
of  Christ  as  wisely,  definitely,  successfully,  as  the  farmer 
is  trained  for  the  cultivation  of  the  ground,  the  merchant 
for  the  transaction  of  business,  the  physician  for  the  prac- 
tice of  the  healing  art.  This  most  enlarged  and  liberal 
education  should  so  completely  override  all  other  influences 
and  instructions  as  to  bring  all  the  varied  departments  of 
business  and  occupation  into  its  service.  And  all  this,  just 
because  the  call  of  Christ  is  first  in  authority  and  urgency, 
first  in  promise  and  honor,  and  his  work  is  the  greatest 
that  man  can  undertake  on  earth. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  any  intelligent  and  sincere  Christian 
would  think  of  disputing  the  correctness  of  the  statements 
which  I  make.  All  admit  that  the  command  of  Christ  to 
publish  the  gospel  unto  all  the  nations  is  binding  on  all  his 
followers  and  that  they  should  give  it  precedence  of  all 
secular  plans  and  engagements  whatsoever.  All  admit  that 
the  nations  need  the  gospel  more  than  they  need  anything 
else,  and  that  when  it  is  received  and  obeyed  universally 
such  a  period  of  peace  and  prosperity  will  come  as  has  never 
been  known  on  the  earth.     All  admit  that  the  highest  glory. 


RECRUITING    OFFICES. 


Ill 


joy,  and  success  of  life  are  to  be  sought  in  the  service  of 
Christ  in  extending  his  kingdom  on  the  earth.  Nobody 
expects  to  rejoice  in  heaven  that  he  escaped  the  great 
trials  and  sacrifices  of  Christian  duty  on  earth.  No  one 
expects  to  go  about  among  the  hosts  of  the  redeemed  in 
the  blessed  land,  telling  how  much  money  he  made  and 
kept  for  his  own  gratification,  what  an  easy  time  he  secured 
by  letting  the  heavy  burdens  rest  on  other  shoulders  and 
the  hard  work  be  done  by  other  hands.  No  one  thinks  it 
will  make  heaven  brighter  to  him  that  he  finds  no  one 
there  to  say,  "But  for  your  help,  I  should  not  have  been 
here."  Nobody  thinks  that  he  can  be  blessed  and  at  home 
in  the  company  of  those  who  came  out  of  great  tribulation 
if  he  has  to  remember  that  the  great  work  of  establishino: 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth  had  no  help  from  gifts 
or  words  or  labor  of  his. 

What  we  all  need  is  to  look  at  these  great  facts  concern- 
ing personal  duty  and  final  salvation  in  their  true  light. 
When  we  see,  as  we  can  beyond  all  doubt  or  question,  that 
the  real  joy  and  honor  of  life  must  come  from  the  service 
of  Christ,  then,  as  rational,  right-minded  persons,  we  should 
choose  that  service  with  all  our  heart.  Knowing,  as  we  all 
do,  that  nothing  will  give  us  satisfaction  in  the  review  of  the 
past  from  the  borders  of  the  other  world,  save  that  which  we 
have  done  to  advance  the  kingdom  of  God  in  our  lifetime, 
we  should  set  ourselves  to  begin  our  true  and  highest  work 
with  all  our  heart  and  strength. 

Let  the  Church  put  itself  before  the  world  in  the  charac- 
ter of  one  united  host  of  earnest,  energetic,  self-denying 
men,  bent  upon  one  great  enterprise  and  making  everything 


378  MO/^JV/A'G   LIGHT  LV  A/AjVV  LA.VDS. 

yield  to  that ;  let  it  be  seen  beyond  all  question  that  Chris- 
tians of  every  name  are  one  in  the  purpose  and  effort  to 
bring  all  nations  to  the  adoption  of  the  one  faith  of  the 
gospel,  the  one  life  of  trust  and  obedience  and  love  to  God 
in  all  things ;  let  the  talents,  riches,  arts,  resources  now 
subject  to  the  control  of  Christians  be  looked  upon  by  them 
as  consecrated  to  the  demands  of  God's  work  in  the  world, 
and  let  children  be  trained  up  in  families  and  churches  to 
the  early  and  full  belief  that  the  success  and  joy  of  life  to 
them  must  be  found  in  the  service  of  Christ,  and  then  the 
dawn  of  the  great  day  of  deliverance  from  darkness  will  be 
seen  by  the  nations,  and  they  will  welcome  its  coming  as 
the  great  day  of  the  Lord  God  Almighty.  The  long,  dark 
reign  of  sin  and  superstition,  of  waste  and  war,  of  poverty 
and  misery,  will  give  place  to  the  reign  of  righteousness 
and  peace.  It  will  then  just  begin  to  be  seen  for  what  high 
dominion  over  the  earth  and  all  the  powers  therein  man 
was  created,  and  what  still  more  glorious  dominion  and  des- 
tiny await  him  in  the  endless  future. 

In  this  age  of  growing  knowledge  and  startling  invention 
and  tireless  activity  we  take  it  for  granted  that  young  peo- 
ple must  have  special  education  for  success  in  any  of  the 
arts,  trades,  or  professions  of  active  life.  The  artist,  the 
merchant,  the  manufacturer,  the  farmer,  as  well  as  the  states- 
man, the  lawyer,  and  the  physician,  must  be  taught  early 
that  his  line  of  work  is  large  enough  to  call  forth  all  his 
powers  and  resources,  and  that  he  will  be  successful  and 
satisfied  with  his  pursuit  only  so  far  as  he  makes  it  great  and 
honorable  before  the  world.  He  never  will  do  his  best  in 
his  profession  unless  he  feels  that  it  is  worthy  of  his  efforts 
?nd  abilities  when  put  to  the  highest  strain. 


RECRUITING    OFFICES.  379 

Now  in  the  divine  commission  to  disciple  all  nations,  we 
have  an  enterprise  the  grandest,  the  most  sacred,  the  most 
far-reaching  and  glorious  that  can  ever  inspire  the  efforts  or 
employ  the  resources  of  man.  The  means  to  be  employed 
are  tried  and  efficient,  the  measures  to  be  adopted  are  wise 
and  honorable,  the  ends  to  be  sought  are  the  highest  and 
best.  The  work  to  be  done  is  varied  and  complex  :  it  runs 
into  all  the  relations  of  life  and  all  the  theories  of  faith  and 
duty ;  it  spreads  over  the  whole  range  of  human  thought  and 
culture  and  inquiry ;  it  demands  disciplined  powers  and 
accurate  observation  and  patient  study  and  personal  conse- 
cration ;  it  supplies  fit  and  noble  employment  for  all  diver- 
sities of  talent  and  temper  and  taste  ;  it  accepts  and  uses  the 
least  and  the  greatest  gifts  ;  it  justifies  and  rewards  the 
most  costly  sacrifices  ;  it  calls  forth  the  grandest  efforts ;  it 
inspires  the  highest  hopes  ;  it  looks  forward  to  the  most 
triumphant  and  glorious  conclusion. 

Such  is  the  work  given  the  Church  to  do  in  the  divine 
commission  to  disciple  all  nations.  To  take  it  up  with 
assured  faith  and  to  carry  it  on  with  becoming  energy,  the 
Christian  people  in  the  home  land  must  make  it  a  study  and 
an  education  for  life.  It  must  come  to  be  a  fundamental 
article  in  all  creeds,  and  a  first  and  last  endeavor  in  all  work, 
to  fill  the  earth  most  speedily  with  the  knowledge  of  God, 
to  open  for  all  wanderers  the  way  of  life  and  salvation  by 
Jesus  Christ.  To  this  end,  young  men  and  women  in  Chris- 
tian families  and  churches  must  be  taught  early  to  believe 
in  the  greatness  and  the  divine  authority  of  the  missionary 
enterprise.  They  must  be  made  to  see  and  to  feel  that  no 
movement  in  human  society,  in  all  the  ages,  is  for  a  moment 


380  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

to  be  compared  in  importance  with  that  of  establishing 
the  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  among  all  nations. 
They  must  be  trained  up  into  the  full  and  declared  purpose 
to  answer  the  call  of  Christ,  in  whatever  form  of  service  they 
can  render,  for  the  advancement  of  his  kingdom  among  men. 
They  should  be  made  to  feel  that  the  highest  talent  and 
the  most  aspiring  ambition  can  find  the  most  honorable  and 
satisfying  employment  under  the  Prince  and  Captain  of  sal- 
vation. It  should  not  be  a  question  where  they  shall  go  or 
what  kind  of  work  they  shall  do,  but  how  they  can  render 
the  most  effective  service  in  the  world-wide  campaign  of  dis- 
cipling  the  nations.  If  they  are  fitted  for  the  farm  or  the 
shop,  the  countinghouse  or  the  market,  the  professor's  chair 
or  the  preacher's  pulpit,  for  the  home  or  the  foreign  field, 
they  should  hold  themselves  ready,  and  they  should  count 
it  the  glory  and  joy  and  success  of  life  to  fill  the  post  to 
which  the  Master  calls. 

This  is  to  be  made  a  matter  of  early  and  continuous  educa- 
tion in  the  family,  in  the  church,  and  in  the  intercourse  of 
Christian  people  with  each  other.  Let  it  be  understood  that 
the  Church  is  a  divine  institution,  organized  and  maintained 
for  the  especial  purpose  of  establishing  the  kingdom  of  God 
on  earth,  just  as  truly  as  a  bank  or  a  railroad  or  a  manufac- 
turing corporation  is  organized  for  the  transaction  of  its 
chosen  line  of  business.  The  secular  corporation  fails  of 
the  object  of  its  existence  when  it  secures  no  income.  So 
the  Church  loses  sight  of  its  divine  commission  when  it  is 
making  no  advance  in  securing  the  conquest  of  the  world  for 
Christ.  All  this  should  be  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course, 
in  the  daily  conversation  of  the  Christian  family,  in  the  aims 


RECRUITING   OFFICES.  38  I 

and  motives  of  Christians  in  the  transaction  of  business,  in 
the  modes  of  living  and  the  customs  of  Christian  society,  in 
the  course  of  reading  and  study  kept  up  for  the  improvement 
of  the  mind  and  the  enlargement  of  the  area  of  thought  for 
old  and  young.  The  training  of  the  family  and  the  quiet  life 
of  home,  the  outlook  of  the  future,  and  all  plans  for  coming 
days,  should  be  in  harmony  with  the  one  predominant 
purpose,  to  do  the  utmost  to  fill  the  world  with  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  The  rising  hopes 
and  the  young  ambition  of  children  should  be  stimulated 
and  drawn  out  in  that  direction  by  the  divine  flame  of 
Christian  love  burning  with  its  holy  fire  upon  the  altar  of 
the  heart. 

The  whole  order  of  service,  preaching,  and  benevolent 
work  in  the  Church  should  keep  before  the  world  the  one 
great,  divine  idea  that  the  Church  is  a  brotherhood  of  the 
children  of  God,  and  that  it  has  no  higher  or  better  aim 
than  to  do  God's  will  on  earth  as  it  is  done  by  the  blessed  in 
heaven.  The  Church  has  indeed  no  right  or  reason  for  its 
existence  but  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Master  himself, 
whose  most  glorious  mission  on  earth  was  to  go  about  among 
men  doing  good.  The  young  members  of  the  flock  are  to  be 
trained  up  into  the  feeling  and  the  faith  that  the  greatest 
and  the  most  godlike  man  —  the  man  whose  work  will 
last  longest  and  be  most  honored  and  blessed  when  he  is 
gone  —  is  the  man  who  gives  himself  most  heartily  and  self- 
denyingly  to  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness and  peace  on  earth.  The  man  who  does  that  will  be 
lifted  above  the  narrow  jealousies  and  petty  ambitions  of  the 
world ;  he  will  have  peace  and  good  hope  all  the  way,  and 


382  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

when  he  is  gone  his  name  will  be  held  in  blessed  and 
everlast-'        remembrance. 

All  this  is  to  be  set  forth  and  taught  in  the  Christian 
home  and  the  church  and  the  Sunday-school,  not  as  a  con- 
strained or  overwrought  or  fanatical  life,  but  as  the  true  life 
for  man  —  the  free,  joyous,  perfect  life  which  best  employs, 
disciplines,  and  develops  all  the  faculties  of  man,  best 
answers  all  the  wants  of  man,  brings  forth  the  most  com- 
plete, strong,  symmetrical  manhood.  The  Church  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  family,  a  school,  a  college  for  the  education 
of  the  young  into  such  a  life.  The  Church  is  to  take  all 
suitable  and  available  measures  for  training  up  its  members, 
old  and  young,  to  the  feeling  and  the  faith  that  the  one 
thing  best  worth  living  for  is  the  one  thing  set  forth  as 
first  and  best  in  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus.  Seek  first 
the  kingdom  of  God  ;  seek  first  the  personal  righteousness, 
purity,  excellence,  which  are  qualifications  for  membership 
in  God's  kingdom  ;  seek  first  in  all  earthly  plans  and  purposes 
the  best  means  of  establishing  God's  kingdom  of  truth  and 
love  among  men, — in  that  way  only  can  the  highest  honor, 
joy,  success  of  life  be  found.  In  that  way  only  can  our 
young  people  be  trained  up  to  have  an  honorable  part  in 
bringing  forward  that  one  divine  event,  the  universal  reign 
of  right  and  truth  and  love  on  earth,  towards  which  all 
changes  and  revolutions  are  made,  by  divine  providence,  to 
lead  on. 

Young  people,  when  they  come  into  the  Church  on  pro- 
fession of  their  faith  in  Christ,  sometimes  think  they  are 
making  a  great  sacrifice  :  they  are  cutting  themselves  off 
from  courses  of  life  which    it   would  be  plea.sant  and  profit- 


RECRUITING   OFFICES.  383 

able  to  pursue,  if  it  were  permitted.  They  are  apt  to  think 
that,  in  coming  into  the  Church  and  taking  on  themselves 
the  responsibilities  of  the  Christian  profession,  they  are 
giving  up  some  measure  of  the  freedom  for  which  their 
young  hearts  long  :  they  are  losing  the  enjoyment  which  the 
world  offers  to  all  who  accept  its  principles  and  pursue  its 
pleasures.  They  must  be  made  to  see  that  all  such  impres- 
sions are  mistakes  and  delusions.  The  true  life  for  them  — 
the  noble,  free,  joyous,  satisfying  life  for  them  and  for  all, 
old  and  young — is  the  life  of  obedience  to  God,  the  life  of 
doing  good,  the  life  of  release  from  the  narrow  constraints 
of  selfishness,  and  of  devotion  to  the  highest  interests  of 
mankind. 

Everything  which  is  given  or  done  or  suffered  for  Christ 
lifts  up  the  soul ;  enlarges  the  whole  area  of  being,  action, 
hope;  makes  life  better  worth  living,  death  more  welcome  as 
a  happy  entrance  upon  a  still  higher,  happier,  more  glorious 
career  of  endless  progress  in  light  and  truth  and  love. 
There  is  no  greater,  nobler  view  of  life  and  duty  than  that 
which  the  gospel  sets  before  us  all.  The  one  great  idea  best 
fitted  to  keep  before  the  young  to  enlarge  their  faculties, 
build  up  their  hopes,  and  exalt  their  aspirations,  give  them 
grand,  ennobling  views  of  human  nature  and  destiny,  is 
the  idea  of  God  present  everywhere,  blessing  all  creatures, 
upholding  all  things.  As  they  grow  up  to  mature  years  and 
form  their  plans  for  life,  they  should  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  whole  world  belongs  to  God,  and  everything  will  go 
right  on  this  earth  when  men  acknowledge  God's  ownership 
of  all  faculties  and  all  possessions,  and  they  consent  to  use 
them   all  as   he  directs.     Inspire  the  minds   of   the   young 


384  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

with  the  great  ambition  to  do  the  most  in  filling  the  world 
with  the  truth  of  God,  teaching  and  persuading  all  men  to 
live  lives  of  obedience  to  the  eternal  laws  of  truth,  justice, 
and  love.  Make  them  feel  that  they  have  a  personal  interest 
in  every  race  and  nation,  and  in  bringing  all  people  to 
accept  the  true  and  divine  life  of  faith  in  Christ,  obedience 
to  him,  participation  in  his  holy  and  beneficent  work  of 
enlightening  and  redeeming  all  mankind. 

Under  such  instructions,  given  day  by  day  kindly  and 
faithfully  in  all  Christian  homes,  preached  and  proclaimed 
every  Sabbath  day  from  every  Christian  pulpit,  confirmed 
and  sanctified  in  all  meetings  for  Christian  conference  and 
prayer,  the  Church  will  become  a  mighty  army,  whose  march 
is  from  victory  to  victory ;  the  rising  generation  will  grow 
up  into  a  grander,  more  complete  and  godlike  manhood  than 
has  ever  yet  been  seen  in*  any  age  of  the  past  or  in  any 
quarter  of  the  globe.  Young  people  will  be  most  effectually 
guarded  against  the  frivolities  of  worldly  pleasure  and  the 
excesses  of  sensual  dissipation  by  setting  before  them  a 
career  which  will  employ  all  their  noblest  faculties,  satisfy 
their  loftiest  aspirations,  and  give  them  joy  and  honor  in 
every  conflict.  In  no  other  way  can  the  eager,  ambitious, 
impulsive  youth  of  America  find  fit  and  healthful  employ- 
ment for  their  overwrought  sensibilities,  a  field  of  action 
worthy  of  their  most  cultivated  powers,  and  a  safeguard 
against  every  temptation  to  lead  a  selfish  and  sensual  life. 


XXVI. 


COOPERATION    IN    THE  FIELD. 


"  I  ^O  give  the  great  missionary  enterprise  a  new  start 
-*-  forward,  there  must  needs  be  earnest,  hearty,  intelli- 
gent cooperation  and  good  understanding  among  all  laborers 
in  the  foreign  field.  Every  individual  and  every  denomina- 
tion should  be  left  free  to  entertain  their  own  preferences 
and  adopt  their  own  best  methods  of  work.  But  there 
should  be  an  adjournment,  or  rather  an  utter  and  positive 
abandonment,  of  all  contention  and  controversy  about  cere- 
monial, ecclesiastical,  or  unessential  doctrinal  differences, 
and  all  should  unite  in  the  full,  universal  acceptance  of  the 
one  supreme  and  essential  doctrine  of  the  cross.  The  first 
and  the  last  and  the  most  essential  thing  which  the  heathen 
need  to  kn«w  and  believe  is  the  way  of  salvation  as  set 
forth  in  the  gospel :  individual,  personal  rescue  from  the 
power  and  the  guilt  of  sin  through  faith  in  Christ.  So 
long  as  that  one  great  fact  is  put  first  and  foremost  in  all 
teaching,  missionaries  of  every  denomination  can  afford  to 
work  together  harmoniously,  side  by  side,  in  the  same  field, 
and  each  rejoice  in  the  other's  prosperity  as  truly  as  in 
his  own. 

There  must  always  be  diversities  of  taste,  preference,  and 
opinion  in  religious  worship,  usage,  and  teaching,  as  there 
must  be  diversities  of  temperament,  adaptation,  and  ability. 
Some  minds  will  be  speculative,  prone  to  dwell  upon   conjec- 

385 


386  MORiVING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

tures,  theories,  possibilities  of  doctrine  and  of  ultimate 
destiny.  Some  minds  will  be  straightforward,  positive, 
practical,  looking  only  at  the  straight  and  narrow  path  on 
which  the  light  of  divine  revelation  shines  with  clear  and 
unquestionable  distinctness.  They  will  only  walk  in  the 
way  which  can  be  traced  with  certainty,  leaving  the  infinite 
immensity  of  dim  conjecture  and  vague  hypothesis,  above 
and  beyond,  all  unexplored.  Some,  by  education  and  usage 
and  personal  taste,  may  have  strong  preferences  for  par- 
ticular modes  of  worship  and  ordinances  and  ecclesiastical 
order.  Some  may  have  little  respect  for  tradition  and 
ancient  usage.  They  may  be  full  of  the  idea  that  they 
themselves  are  living  in  the  best  and  oldest  time  of  the 
world,  and  they  may  be  expected  to  have  more  wisdom  and 
experience  than  all  the  ancients.  They  may  therefore 
desire  to  have  the  utmost  freedom  and  spontaneity  in  all 
matters  of  church  work  and  worship.  Some  may  wish  to 
give  especial  prominence  and  importance  to  forms  and 
ordinances  which  others  do  not  deem  essential.  Some  may 
make  much  of  a  particular  order  in  the  Christian  ministry 
or  of  special  rules  for  the  organization  of  churches  and  the 
transaction  of  ecclesiastical  business.  Others  may  be  quite 
willing  to  have  churches  grow  up  into  such  forms  and  usages 
as  are  suited  to  the  circumstances  of  peoples  and  countries. 
They  will  be  ready  to  recognize  any  one  as  an  authorized 
minister  of  the  gospel  if  he  preaches  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus  and  gives  himself  to  the  work  in  sincerity  and 
love. 

Let  all  these  diversities  of  taste  and  usage  and  preference 
be  allowed  among  Christian  laborers  in  heathen  lands.     But 


COOPERATION  IN   THE  FIELD.  387 

let  all  bearing  the  Christian  name  and  going  forth  into  the 
o-reat  world  field  with  a  divine  commission  to  disciple  the 
nations  put  the  one  supreme  doctrine  of  the  cross  so 
prominently  before  everything  else  in  their  teachings  that 
all  diversities  of  form  and  of  faith,  of  usage  and  of  tradition, 
of  theory  and  of  speculation,  shall  be  lost  sight  of  in 
comparison  with  that.  The  heathen  should  be  made  to 
see  that  Christians  of  all  denominations  are  practically  one, 
because  they  are  working  for  the  same  end,  they  are  ready 
to  rejoice  in  the  same  success  by  whomsoever  it  is  gained, 
they  are  perfectly  agreed  in  regarding  one  thing  more 
important  than  all  others,  and  that  one  thing  is  personal 
salvation  through  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 

All  missionaries  in  the  field  should  be  courteous  and  hon- 
orable, generous  and  magnanimous  in  their  intercourse  with 
each  other  and  in  their  mode  of  carrying  on  their  work  in 
the  same  field.  They  should  acknowledge  openly  before  all 
the  heathen  that  they  are  all  working  for  one  end  and  in  the 
service  of  the  same  Master,  and  that  diversities  of  operation 
are  entirely  consistent  with  harmony  of  spirit  and  purpose. 
The  heathen  should  never  see  or  hear  that  different  denom- 
inations of  Christians,  living  and  laboring  in  their  countries, 
are  disposed  to  ignore  or  slight  or  take  advantage  of  each 
other  in  prosecuting  the  one  common  enterprise  of  estab- 
lishing the  kingdom  of  God  in  all  the  earth.  Missionaries 
are  not  sent  to  India  or  China  or  Japan  to  make  Episcopa- 
lians or  Methodists  or  Presbyterians  or  Congregationalists, 
but  to  make  disciples  of  Christ.  That  is  the  commission 
which  they  hold  from  one  common  Lord  and  Master.  If 
they  forget  the  commission  and  labor  to  set  up  a  denomina- 


388  A/OA'X/A'G   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

tion,  they  arc  not  fit  persons  for  the  field.  They  are  making 
divisions  in  the  host  of  the  Lord,  when  it  should  present 
one  united  and  unbroken  front  to  the  common  foe. 

All  missionary  boards,  committees,  and  secretaries  at 
home  should  plainly  charge  their  agents  that  they  are  not 
sent  out  to  promote  the  growth  of  denominational  connec- 
tions, but  to  advance  the  kingdom  of  Christ  by  securing  the 
salvation  of  men.  All  teachers  in  theological  seminaries 
who  are  preparing  young  men  for  the  missionary  work 
should  labor  to  inspire  them  with  the  one  desire  and  purpose 
to  preach  the  gospel  in  its  simplicity,  as  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation,  leaving  all  conjectures  and  speculations  aside 
as  forming  no  part  of  the  original  and  divine  commission. 
The  fact  that  the  heathen  need  the  pure,  ennobling,  redeem- 
ing truth  of  the  gospel  more  than  they  need  anything  else 
is  clear  and  unquestionable.  And  they  need  it  in  its  purest 
and  plainest  form,  free  from  all  the  inventions  and  amend- 
ments of  men.  While  that  is  so,  it  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
missionary  to  preach  the  preaching  that  has  been  bidden 
him  in  faith  and  love,  and  leave  the  result  with   God. 

I  say  all  this,  and  yet  I  admit  again,  as  I  have  done 
before,  that  there  may  be  great  diversity  of  opinion  and  of 
practice  in  heathen  lands,  both  in  regard  to  the  actual  con- 
dition of  the  heathen  mind  in  respect  to  religion,  and  also 
in  regard  to  the  best  means  and  methods  of  bringing  them 
to  accept  the  gospel.  In  China,  for  example,  some  mission- 
aries think  they  find  much  that  is  good  and  true  in  Confu- 
cianism. Sometimes  they  talk  as  if  they  thought  it  needed 
little  modification  to  make  it  harmonize  with  Christianity. 
Some  talk  as  if  they  thought  it  had  done  much  to  prepare 


COOPERATION  IN   THE  FIELD.  389 

the  way  for  the  gospel.  Other  missionaries  say  that  Con- 
fucianism is  intensely  atheistic,  and  that  it  takes  away  all 
sense  of  responsibility  to  God,  all  faith  in  the  reality  of  a 
future  life  and  of  the  spiritual  and  immortal  nature  of  man. 
They  therefore  regard  it  as  the  most  difficult  of  all  the 
oppositions  which  the  gospel  has  to  overcome  in  China. 
Now,  of  these  two  classes,  one  makes  frequent  and  com- 
plimentary allusions  to  the  precepts  of  Confucius  in  the 
hope  of  disarming  prejudice  and  preparing  the  mind  to 
receive  the  clearer  and  better  precepts  of  Christ.  The 
other  class  make  the  least  possible  reference  to  Confucius, 
lest  the  heathen  should  be  led  to  think  that  Christianity 
is  only  another  religion  of  the  same  general  character  with 
their  own,  and  that,  while  it  may  be  good  and  true  for 
western  people,  the  Chinese  will  do  best  to  stick  to  their 
own.  Now,  the  missionaries  who  have  such  different  judg- 
ments about  the  essential  character  of  the  religion  of  China 
can  work  together  harmoniously,  provided  they  agree  in 
exalting  the  cross  of  Christ  to  its  due  place  in  all  their 
teachings.  Let  them  only  vie  with  each  other  in  the 
endeavor  to  show  the  need  of  redemption  and  the  fullness 
with  which  it  is  provided  in  the  gospel  of  Christ.  Let  the 
heathen  see  that,  however  diverse  may  be  the  mode  in 
which  the  missionaries  speak  of  Confucius,  they  are  per- 
fectly agreed  in  exalting  Christ  as  the  only  and  the  all- 
sufficient  Saviour.  Let  them  see  that  the  one  thing  about 
which  Christians  are  all  agreed  is  immeasurably  more 
important  than  all  their  differences.  Then  there  will  be 
no  loss  of  power  for  the  propagation  of  Christianity  through 
the  collisions  and  controversies  of  Christians  among:  them- 


390  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

selves.  There  will  be  one  fervent  and  united  work  in  the 
field  and  one  joy  in  the  harvest. 

There  is  great  diversity  of  opinion  among  missionaries  in 
China  as  to  the  degree  of  life  and  permanency  which  may 
still  be  observed  in  the  old  order  of  things  in  religion  and  in 
the  state.  Some  feel  sure  that  the  power  of  the  old  pagan 
system  has  been  waning  for  some  hundreds  of  years  :  its 
temples  and  pagodas  and  monasteries  are  all  of  the  past. 
They  do  not  see  it  doing  any  great  work  of  building  or 
enlarging  at  the  present  day,  and  they  see  no  sign  that  the 
power  which  built  and  endowed  in  the  past  will  ever  under- 
take such  great  establishments  again.  There  are  twelve 
hundred  walled  cities  and  a  hundred  thousand  temples  and 
religious  establishments  in  the  empire,  but  no  one  of  them 
has  been  built  within  the  present  generation.  The  traveler, 
in  passing  through  the  country  to-day,  does  not  see  anywhere 
signs  of  the  existence  of  a  power  sufficient  to  build  the  walls 
that  surround  the  one  city  of  Peking  alone.  The  courts  in 
the  great  temples  of  Confucius  are  apt  to  be  overgrown 
with  weeds  and  bushes  and  wild  grass.  That  may  not  always 
be  a  sign  of  neglect  and  decay  in  China,  but  to  a  traveler 
from  western  nations  it  does  not   seem  like  life  and  activity. 

Others  say  that  the  old  pagan  Buddhism  and  Taoism  are 
just  as  strong  and  deeply  rooted  in  the  hearts  of  the  people 
as  they  ever  were.  They  are  not  more  willing  to  give  it  up 
now  than  they  were  two  hundred  years  ago.  They  are  not 
building  and  endowing  great  temples  and  monasteries  as  they 
once  were,  simply  because  a  change  of  sovereigns  has  taken 
place  and  there  has  been  a  long  minority  in  the  occupancy 
of  the  throne.     This  apparent  decadence  will  soon  give  place 


COOPERATION  IN   THE  FIELD.  39  I 

to  high  activity  and  great  displays  of  power.  Then  again 
some  say  that  the  Chinese  are  not  a  reHgious  people 
at  all :  that  their  incense  burning  and  sacrifices  of  paper, 
furniture,  money,  servants,  provisions,  are  only  offerings  to 
appease  the  spirits  of  the  departed  and  keep  them  from 
injuring  the  living.  The  superstition  about  spirits  is  the 
most  powerful  sentiment  now  controlling  the  Chinese  mind 
and  that  superstition  existed  long  before  Buddhism  or  Con- 
fucianism appeared  in  the  country,  and  it  still  exists,  inde- 
pendent of  any  philosophy  or  religion  which  the  people  have 
learned  from  their  sages. 

The  Chinese  hear  the  missionary  preach  about  the  true 
and  the  only  God,  and  they  say,  "  Yes,  that  is  all  right ;  that 
is  what  we  all  believe,  always  have  believed."  They  say  so 
because  they  have  not  understood  what  has  been  said,  or 
because  they  do  not  care  enough  about  it  to  try  to  under- 
stand, or  they  have  put  their  own  interpretation  upon  the 
missionary's  words  and  given  them  a  meaning  the  opposite 
of  what  he  intended.  Their  doctrine  of  spirits  remains 
untouched  by  anything  the  preacher  says  about  God.  So 
long  as  they  are  left  to  practice  geomancy  and  astrology 
and  demonolatry,  they  will  not  make  much  effort  to  see  the 
difference  between  Buddhism  and  Christianity.  In  fact, 
there  is  very  little  Buddhism,  pure  and  simple,  in  all  China, 
very  little  regard  for  the  temples  of  Buddha  except  as  con- 
venient places  for  gambling,  drawing  lots,  telling  fortunes, 
and  propitiating  spirits. 

I  lodged  two  weeks  in  the  temple  of  Everlasting  Rest,  on 
the  slopes  of  the  Western  Hills,  overlooking  the  walls  of 
Peking,     Close  by  the  door  of  my  room  was  the  holy  house 


392  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

of  Buddha,  and  there  was  the  sacred  image  of  the  ever-sleep- 
ing god  in  due  style  and  form.  The  incense  was  burning 
before  it  night  and  day.  But  in  the  same  holy  place  there 
were  boxes  and  barrels,  old  lumber  and  broken  crockery, 
boards  and  tables  on  which  the  servants  and  missionaries 
were  ironing,  and  tubs  in  which  they  were  washing  clothes, 
."he  head  priest  did  not  object  to  their  making  such  use  of 
his  holy  house.  He  did  not  care,  the  people  did  not  care, 
nobody  cared.  But  if  a  wall  had  been  built  up  a  foot  higher 
than  the  walls  of  the  temple,  or  a  telegraph  wire  had  been 
stretched  across  the  court  inside  of  the  buildings,  every 
Chinaman  would  have  said  that  the  change  would  give  offense 
to  the  spirits  of  the  earth  and  the  air,  and  the  priests  and 
people  would  have  been  trembling  with  fear  or  burning  with 
indignation. 

Amid  such  contradictions  and  perplexities  our  mission- 
aries must  live  and  grope  their  way  into  the  deep  darkness 
of  the  native  mind.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  men  of 
equal  intelligence,  sincerity,  and  faith  will  all  agree  as  to  the 
best  mode  of  bringing  the  truth  of  the  gospel  into  contact 
with  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  such  people.  All  we 
can  ask  of  our  brethren  in  the  field  is  that  each  shall  act 
upon  his  own  free  unbiased  judgment  of  what  is  best,  and 
all  shall  judge  each  other  in  kindness  and  charity.  There 
are  some  who  think  that  education  is  to  be  the  grand 
regenerator  of  such  blinded  minds  and  darkened  hearts. 
They  say,  Teach  the  heathen  science,  the  laws  of  nature, 
the  arts  and  inventions,  the  history  and  literature  of  the 
most  cultivated  and  Christian  nations,  and  then  they  will 
renounce  their  heathenism  of  course,  and  will  be  ready  to 


COOPERATION  IN   THE  FIELD.  393 

embrace  Christianity.  They  would  bring  together  young 
men  in  large  numbers  in  schools,  put  them  under  the 
personal  influence  of  Christian  teachers  every  day,  teach 
them  philosophy,  literature,  history,  science,  but  for  a  while 
say  little  to  them,  except  in  a  general  way,  about  the  one 
thing  which  Christ  puts  first  before  all  seekers  for  the 
highest  good  of  life.  They  think  the  time  has  not  yet  come 
for  calling  the  heathen,  one  by  one,  into  the  open  profession 
of  faith  in  Christ.  They  are  first  to  be  converted  in  a 
general  way  by  nations  to  the  acknowledgment  of  Chris- 
tianity as  the  one  true  and  divine  religion.  The  govern- 
ments must  first  be  persuaded  to  renounce  heathenism. 
The  people  will  follow  their  rulers,  and  so  they  will  all 
eventually  turn  to  Christ.  Such  is  the  theory  of  some  in 
the  field  who  are  faithful  in  work  and  ardent  in  hope. 

Some  missionaries  are  inclined  to  traverse  large  sections 
of  country,  preaching  the  gospel  as  they  go,  and  so  bearing 
witness  unto  Jesus  to  many  thousands  for  once,  and  then 
leaving  them  to  think  on  what  they  have  heard.  They  say 
that  is  the  way  that  Jesus  himself  preached  and  that  is  the 
most  apostolic  method  of  bearing  the  divine  commission 
unto  the  nations.  They  tell  of  the  great  multitudes  to 
whom  they  have  spoken,  as  the  Master  spoke  to  the  people 
on  the  mountain  or  by  the  sea.  They  do  not  wait  to  see 
how  effectual  their  preaching  has  been.  They  think  they 
have  done  their  duty  by  bearing  witness  unto  the  truth  in 
such  language  as  they  can  command,  and  then  passing  on 
to  preach  to  other  cities  and  villages.  The  people  gather 
to  hear  them  ;  they  look  as  if  they  were  listening  and  under- 
standing.    When  the  missionary  has  gone,  they  look  at  each 


394  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

Other  and  express  their  wonder  at  what  the  stranger  could 
be  talking  about.  Some  guess  one  thing,  some  another, 
but  none  get  a  correct  idea  of  what  the  missionary  meant 
to  say.  In  a  few  days  it  is  to  them  as  if  they  had  never 
seen  the  face  or  heard  the  voice  of  the  stranger  who  came 
and  went  like  the  cloud  of  the  morning  and  left  no  trace 
behind. 

Some  who  go  to  heathen  lands  to  preach  the  gospel  give 
especial  attention  to  the  classics  and  sacred  books  of  the 
East.  They  think  they  find  much  wisdom,  profound  lessons 
of  truth  and  duty  in  the  Confucian  and  Buddhistic  records 
and  traditions.  Unconsciously  they  put  Christian  interpre- 
tations upon  words  and  symbols  to  which  the  original  writers 
and  speakers  gave  no  such  meaning.  So,  very  naturally,  they 
find  that  some  forms  of  heathenism  make  a  near  approach  to 
Christianity,  and  in  fact  may  be  used  as  a  preparation  for  the 
gospel.  So  they  are  led  to  think  that  a  due  combination  of 
the  best  sayings  and  usages  of  heathenism  with  the  pure 
precepts  of  Christianity  will  be  found  best  fitted  to  raise  up 
the  eastern  nations  to  a  truer  and  a  better  life.  They  gladly 
avail  themselves  of  opportunities  to  teach  in  heathen  schools 
with  the  understanding  that,  in  the  great  matter  of  the 
Christian  truth  which  the  missionary  goes  to  teach,  a  seal 
shall  be  put  upon  their  lips.  They  can  go  before  their 
classes  day  by  day  to  g?t'e  instruction  with  a  distinct  agree- 
ment that  they  will  say  nothing  about  the  beginning  of  all 
wisdom,  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  They  hope  that  by  making 
such  compromises  for  a  time,  by-and-by  the  heathen  will 
permit  them  to  speak  on  the  one  great  truth  of  the  gospel 
message.     Sometimes    they  even  go  so  far  as    to    estabUsh 


COOPERATION  IN   THE  FIELD.  395 

schools  of  their  own,  and  call  them  Christian  schools  too, 
and  yet  they  carefully  avoid  all  effort  to  bring  their  pupils, 
one  by  one,  to  accept  and  obey  the  special  truth  of  divine 
revelation.  They  do  so  in  the  hope  that  instruction  in 
science  will  prepare  the  way  for  the  acceptance  of  the  spirit- 
ual truths  of  the  gospel. 

So  various  are  the  opinions  and  the  practice  of  intelligent, 
honest,  conscientious  men  who  go  to  China  and  India  and 
Japan  to  make  known  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ  to 
the  heathen  nations.  Far  apart  as  they  seem  to  be  in  prin- 
ciple and  in  methods  of  work,  they  still  ought  to  make  the 
impression  upon  the  disciples  of  Confucius  and  of  Buddha 
that  they  are  a  united  host  and  that  they  are  all  laboring 
for  one  great  end  —  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom 
of  Christ  in  all  the  earth.  And  that  they  can  do,  if 
always  .in  the  presence  of  the  heathen  and  in  their  private 
consultations  they  speak  of  each  other  as  brethren,  they 
rejoice  in  each  other's  success,  they  put  first  and  foremost, 
in  all  their  personal  influence  and  in  all  their  declarations 
of  principles,  the  doctrine  of  salvation  by  Jesus  Christ  alone. 

The  scholarly  men,  who  think  they  find  much  truth  in  the 
sacred  books  of  the  East ;  the  educationalists,  who  have  great 
confidence  in  the  power  of  science  to  scatter  the  darkness 
of  superstition  and  prepare  the  way  for  Christianity ;  the 
medical  practitioner,  who  has  to  deal  with  the  lowest  and 
most  revolting  exhibitions  of  vice  and  imbecility ;  the  evan- 
gelist, who  loves  to  pass  through  vast  and  populous  regions, 
preaching  as  he  goes,  and  leaving  the  divine  word  as  a  witness 
unto  the  people,  who  only  partly  understand  its  meaning; 
the  steady,  conservative,  hard-working  organizer  of  schools. 


396  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

colleges,  hospitals  ;  the  loud-voiced  herald,  who  puts  on  the 
dress  of  the  natives  and  goes  out  into  the  streets  and  cries 
with  an  exceeding  great  and  startling  cry  to  the  people  to 
warn  them  of  their  danger  and  to  show  them  the  way  of 
safety,  —  must  all  come  together,  look  each  other  in  the  face 
with  kindness,  confidence,  and  sympathy,  and  they  must  say 
frankly  and  sincerely,  "We  are  all  servants  of  the  same 
Master ;  we  are  all  seeking  the  same  end  ;  we  shall  all 
rejoice  in  the  success  which  follows  effort  by  whomsoever 
put  forth.  Let  us  help  each  other  by  mutual  counsel,  treat 
each  other  with  mutual  respect  and  honor,  commend  each 
other  to  the  confidence  of  the  heathen,  so  that  they  shall 
see  us  to  be  all  one  in  feeling  and  in  faith,  all  one  in  the 
supreme  desire  to  do  the  utmost  for  the  instruction,  the 
improvement,  and  the  salvation  of  the  people  to  whom  we 
come." 

Let  different  bands  of  missionaries  say  as  much  as  that 
to  each  other ;  let  them  make  good  the  words  in  all  their 
intercourse  with  each  other  and  with  the  heathen  ;  let  them 
agree  wholly  with  each  other,  and  always  confess  before  the 
heathen  that  the  one  purpose  for  which  they  have  left 
home  and  country  is  to  make  all  nations  disciples  of  Jesus 
Christ,  —  then  the  great  missionary  enterprise  would  ad- 
vance with  such  power  and  rapidity  as  never  before.  The 
thrones  of  darkness  would  be  shaken  by  the  strong,  united 
assault  of  the  armies  of  light. 


XXVII. 

RECRUITING    ON    THE    FIELD, 

THE  missionary  force  in  the  foreign  field  needs  strength- 
ening with  men  and  money  at  every  point,  to  hold 
ground  already  gained  and  to  move  on  to  greater  conquests. 
The  call  is  constantly  coming  for  reinforcements  from  the 
home  land.  But  it  is  one  of  the  most  encouraging  signs  of 
success  that  efficient  and  faithful  recruits  are  constantly 
coming  in  from  the  foreign  field  itself.  Not  only  preachers, 
catechists,  colporters,  Bible  readers,  but  the  private  mem- 
bers of  the  mission  churches  enter  into  the  beneficent, 
world-embracing  spirit  of  the  new  faith  which  they  have 
received.  It  is  a  new  and  a  blessed  life  to  them  to  be 
delivered  from  all  the  restrictions  of  caste  and  race  and 
color,  and  to  be  introduced  into  a  divine  brotherhood 
which  is  large  and  free  enough  to  take  in  the  whole  family 
of  man.  So,  many  of  them  feel  that  it  is  their  first  duty 
and  highest  privilege  to  prevail  on  their  fellow-countrymen 
to  join  that  sacred  society  and  to  share  the  great  hope 
which  it  brings  to  enslaved  nations.  Converts  from  among 
the  heathen  are  taught  in  the  very  outset  of  their  Chris- 
tian profession  that  they  are  enrolled  in  the  Church  as 
volunteers  in  one  great,  consecrated  army,  whose  cam- 
paign will  be  complete  only  with  the  conquest  of  the 
world. 

They  have  all  grown  up  under  the  impression  that  there 

397 


398  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

arc  many  true  religions  in  the  world,  and  that  every  people 
may  be  expected  to  have  its  own,  and  that  there  must  be 
something  dishonorable  and  dangerous  in  renouncing  the 
faith  of  their  fathers  and  accepting  one  brought  to  them 
from  a  distant  land.  Under  kind  and  faithful  instruction 
they  come  slowly  to  see  that  there  is  but  one  true  religion, 
which  draws  all  men  alike  to  the  love  and  service  of  the 
one  almighty,  all-loving  Father,  and  that  in  becoming 
Christians  they  are  only  taking  the  place  and  leading  the 
life  which  is  fit  and  becoming  to  all  men,  of  every  race  and 
age  and  country.  They  are  to  walk  worthy  of  their  high 
and  holy  vocation  that  others  may  see  the  beauty  and  feel 
the  power  of  the  life  they  are  leading.  They  are  to  bear 
open,  honorable,  and  effectual  testimony  unto  Jesus  as  the 
Saviour  of  all  mankind,  the  living  manifestation  of  the 
infinite  love  of  God  to  man.  In  many  cases  they  incur 
great  self-denial,  they  are  subjected  to  bitter  persecution, 
they  suffer  the  loss  of  friends  and  home  and  property,  to 
be  faithful  to  their  new  Master.  Thus  their  daily  testi- 
mony to  the  purity  and  the  sincerity  of  their  faith  speaks 
louder  than  words  in  proclaiming  the  excellence  of  the 
truth   which  they  have  believed. 

In  whatever  caste  or  calling  the  gospel  finds  the  new 
converts,  they  learn  to  look  on  themselves  as  enrolled  in 
the  service  of  Christ  as  truly  as  if  they  had  been  spe- 
cially ordained  to  the  work  of  preaching  the  word  of  life  to 
their  benighted  countrymen.  Having  broken  loose  from 
the  most  sacred  traditions  of  their  fathers  and  the  most 
honored  customs  of  social  life  in  the  community  where 
they   live,    their   position   is   trying   and    severe,    and    they^ 


RECRUITING  ON  THE  FIELD.  399 

must  needs  exercise  courage  and  patience  and  faith  to  hold 
it  well.  But  for  that  very  reason  they  grow  more  rapidly 
in  strength  of  character  and  in  the  ability  to  command 
respect  and  to  bring  others  to  join  with  them  in  their  new 
faith  and  profession.  They  can  preach  Jesus  and  show  the 
excellence  of  the  new  life  upon  which  they  have  entered, 
in  the  shop,  the  house,  the  street,  the  market,  and  the  field, 
in  such  a  particular  and  personal  manner  as  no  missionary 
from  a  foreign  land  can  preach.  They  can  go  to  a  thou- 
sand places  which  the  missionary  can  never  reach,  and  they 
can  speak  with  millions  who  can  never  be  drawn  to  the 
chapel  or  the  church,  never  can  be  induced  to  stop  and 
listen  for  a  few  moments  to  the  preaching  in  the  streets 
or  under  the  shade  of  the  palm  and  banyan  by  the  river- 
side. 

The  heathen  convert  can  reason,  persuade,  invite,  entreat 
his  fellow-countrymen  in  private  conversation  more  effec- 
tively than  the  foreigner  can  do  in  formal  and  public 
address.  In  many  cases  what  would  seem  to  us  the  very 
weakness  of  his  reasoning  is  the  secret  of  his  power  with 
his  own  people,  because  it  is  according  to  their  modes  of 
thinking  and  it  uses  arguments  and  illustrations  which  mean 
little  to  us  but  are  all  powerful  with  them.  He  can  go  into 
his  neighbors'  houses  or  get  them  to  come  to  his  ;  he  can 
talk  of  Christ  and  tell  the  gospel  story  as  he  sits  with  them 
on  the  earth  floor  and  uses  the  same  language  and  modes 
of  speech  they  have  been  accustomed  to  use  from  youth  up. 
He  can  talk  with  them  as  he  works  in  the  field  or  walks  on 
the  public  road  or  sits  in  the  bazar  or  rows  in  the  boat.  In 
each  and  every  case  he  can  commend  the  Jesus  religion  to  his 


400  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

countrymen  ;  he  can  help  them  to  understand  that  it  comes 
from  the  one  everlasting  Father  and  that  it  answers  the 
deepest  wants  of  the  soul.  He  can  read  the  gospel  to  his 
neighbors,  or,  if  he  cannot  read,  he  can  recite  passages  which 
he  has  committed  to  memory,  as  illiterate  men  can  easily 
do  all  over  the  East.  He  can  talk  familiarly  with  his  friends 
about  the  meaning  and  the  spirit  and  power  of  the  new 
religion  from  the  West.  Every  new  convert,  in  his  own 
village  and  neighborhood,  can  make  himself  known  as  a 
believer  in  the  Jesus  religion  and  a  man  all  in  earnest  to 
persuade  others  to  believe  the  same  truth  and  live  by  its 
instructions. 

This  mode  of  disseminating  gospel  truth  and  gathering 
in  converts  from  among  the  heathen  has  grown  rapidly  into 
use  of  late  in  all  parts  of  the  great  world  field  and  it  has 
been  attended  with  remarkable  success.  By  such  means 
the  heathen  are  taught  to  do  their  own  preaching  better 
than  others  can  do  it  for  them  and  at  far  less  expense.  In 
one  province  of  China  there  are  now  fifty  churches  all 
gathered  and  maintained  by  native  converts  who  had 
received  no  ordination  as  ministers  and  who  asked  no 
compensation  for  their  labor,  save  the  satisfaction  of  doing 
good.  In  that  way  the  influence  of  one  missionary  is  mul- 
tiplied fifty  or  a  hundred  fold,  and  the  process  need  only  be 
carried  on  wisely  and  perseveringly  and  soon  the  gospel 
story  will  be  told  in  every  village  of  the  great  empire  of 
three  hundred  millions  of  people,  and  they  will  gladly  receive 
the  testimony  of  truth  and  salvation. 

In  another  province  of  China  there  was  a  young  man 
who  was  a  confirmed  and  notorious  gambler.     His  father,  in 


RECRUITING    ON   THE  FIELD.  40I 

full  exercise  of  the  peculiar  authority  which  is  given  to  the 
parent  in  that  country,  had  used  threats  and  force  and 
persuasion  and  ridicule  to  reclaim  his  son,  but  all  in  vain. 
By  chance  one  day  the  young  man  saw  what  he  thought 
was  a  story-teller  speaking  to  a  little  company  of  listen- 
ers in  the  open  street.  He  drew  near  to  listen,  and  it  was 
the  story  of  the  gospel  that  he  heard  from  the  lips  of  one 
who  had  learned  it  at  the  mission  and  who  loved  to  tell  it 
to  all  who  would  hear.  The  next  Sunday  he  found  his  way 
into  a  mission  chapel  and  there  heard  the  truth  set  forth 
more  fully.  He  gave  up  gambling  at  once,  renounced  hea- 
thenism, went  home  to  tell  his  friends  and  neighbors.  At 
the  time  when  I  heard  the  story  that  man  had  labored 
so  effectually  in  preaching  his  new  faith  that  his  village 
had  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  active  churches  in  all 
China.  They  had  no  help  from  outside,  except  an  occa- 
sional visit  from  a  missionary.  They  paid  all  of  their  own 
expenses  and  kept  up  six  mission  stations  in  neighboring 
villages. 

So  everywhere,  all  over  the  great  mission  field  of  the 
world,  the  new  convert,  baptized  and  received  to  member- 
ship in  the  Christian  church,  is  learning  the  best  way  of 
making  known  the  simplest  truths  of  the  gospel  to  his 
fellow-countrymen.  He  stands  so  nearly  upon  their  level 
and  he  has  so  recently  broken  loose  from  the  supersti- 
tions with  which  they  are  still  bound  that  he  is  the  best 
man  to  waken  their  attention,  enlist  their  sympathy,  and 
help  them  lay  hold  on  the  new  hope  set  before  them. 
Fast  as  he  learns  what  to  believe  and  how  to  live  as  a 
Christian,  the    whole  instruction  becomes    to    him    a   disci- 


402  MORNLVG  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

pline  and  a  preparation  for  the  work  of  bringing  his  friends 
and  neighbors  to  join  him  in  the  Christian  faith  and  life. 
Special  portions  of  Scripture  are  selected  for  him  to  study 
and  to  find  out  how  he  can  bring  their  practical  meaning 
into  contact  with  the  minds  of  the  gross  and  ignorant  and 
debased,  so  as  to  lift  them  out  of  their  degradation  into 
the  glorious  light  and  liberty  of  the  children  of  God. 

When  the  missionary  receives  a  new  convert  to  the 
church  he  feels  that  he  has  gotten  a  man  from  the  Lord 
to  help  him  in  the  one  great  and  supreme  purpose  for 
which  he  came  on  his  mission  to  the  heathen.  He  rejoices 
over  the  conversion  of  that  one  man,  not  simply  or  mostly 
because  he  is  saved,  but  because  he  may  be  the  means  of 
saving  many  others.  The  missionary  sets  his  mind  at  once 
upon  the  study  to  find  out  the  very  kind  of  work  the  new 
man  can  do  best.  He  sets  the  fresh  recruit  to  that  work 
as  directly  as  the  contractor  or  the  overseer  sets  a 
newly  hired  operative  to  his  task  and  never  thinks  of 
counting  him  among  his  laborers  until  he  is  at  his  work. 
The  missionary  finds  that  the  best  way  to  guard  the  young 
convert  from  falling  back  to  heathenism.  The  best  of  all 
bonds  to  bind  the  members  of  the  mission  church  to  each 
other  and  to  the  Master  is  the  welcome  task  of  bringing 
others  to  accept  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  The  heathen 
convert  is  made  to  understand  in  the  very  outset  of  his 
profession  of  Christian  faith  that  the  church  which  he 
enters  is  an  ever-advancing  and  conquering  army,  and  he 
joins  the  ranks  as  a  volunteer  that  he  may  enter  into 
its  conflicts  and  share  its  triumph.  The  bare  fact  that  he 
enters  the  church  is  to  be  understood  as  a  declaration  on 


RECRUITING    ON   THE  FIELD.  403 

his  part  that  he  will  do  his  best  to  win  his  countrymen 
by  every  fit  and  honorable  means  to    Christ. 

We  can  never  send  men  and  women  enough  from  Chris- 
tian lands  to  do  all  the  teaching  and  the  preaching  required 
to  proclaim  the  gospel  in  all  the  dark  places  of  the  earth. 
The  converted  heathen  must  go  after  their  brethren,  every 
one  bringing  one,  and  in  that  way  the  whole  land  of  the 
East  will  be  filled  with  laborers  for  Christ  and  messengers  of 
the  great  salvation.  The  whole  dark  world  of  heathenism 
will  be  penetrated  through  and  through  by  rays  from  the  Sun 
of  Righteousness  when  every  one  who  hears  the  message 
passes  it  on  to  others  and  illustrates  its  meaning  by  a  life  of 
obedience  to  its  demands.  The  millions  who  sit  in  darkness 
and  in  the  region  of  the  shadow  of  death  will  awake  to  the 
discovery  of  the  great  fact  that  before  them  is  set  an  open 
door  out  of  their  prison.  They  have  only  to  rise  up,  pass 
through  the  door  out  into  the  boundless  realm  of  the  king- 
dom of  God,  and  they  are  in  a  new  world  of  light  and  liberty, 
the  chains  and  the  prison  and  the  bondage  are  all  behind, 
before  them  are  freedom  and  gladness  forevermore. 

Just  now  this  is  the  one  aim  most  earnestly  sought  by 
all  missionaries  in  the  field  :  how  to  set  the  new  convert  at 
work  immediately  and  earnestly  in  seeking  the  conversion 
of  his  neighbors,  his  acquaintances  in  the  very  walks  of 
life  where  the  message  of  divine  truth  finds  him.  This 
method  of  working  is  to  be  adopted,  not  simply  as  a 
policy,  but  as  a  principle,  a  prime  element  of  doctrine  and 
of  faith.  The  members  of  every  new  church  are  banded 
together,  not  simply  for  their  own  personal  safety,  but  as 
a  strong,  living  brotherhood,  organized  and  maintained  for 


404 


MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


the  special  purpose  of  bringing  all  the  heathen  world  under 
the  dominion  of  Christ  as  Saviour  and  King.  Nothing  will 
do  more  to  enlarge  their  hearts  and  lift  up  their  hopes  than 
the  assurance  that  they  have  a  commission  from  the  divine 
Master  to  make  disciples  of  all  nations,  and  that  Christians 
all  round  the  earth  are  joined  with  them  in  the  fulfillment 
of  the  Great  Commission.  They  will  be  firm  in  their  faith 
and  happy  in  their  new  hopes,  just  so  far  as  they  are 
trying  to  bring  others  to  Jesus. 

Within  the  last  fifty  years  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
recruits  have  been  gathered  into  the  Church  from  the 
great  missionary  field  of  the  world.  They  have  been 
taught  in  the  divine  Word,  trained  for  Christian  work, 
tested  by  persecution,  and  they  are  to-day  the  living  con- 
firmation of  the  power  and  the  authority  of  the  commis- 
sion to  disciple  all  nations.  To  gain  so  much  there  has 
been  a  great  expenditure  of  time  and  toil,  of  men  and 
money,  of  exploration  and  experiment.  Great  resources  of 
information  have  been  accumulated,  the  results  of  vast 
and  varied  experience  have  been  recorded.  Explorers  have 
gone  out  into  the  darkest  places  of  heathenism  and  pre- 
paratory work  has  been  thoroughly  done  in  all  parts  of 
the  field.  Churches  have  been  gathered,  schools  estab- 
lished, hospitals  have  been  founded,  printing  presses  set 
up,  Scriptures  have  been  translated,  catechisms  and  text- 
books have  been  compo.sed,  fields  have  been  marked  out 
for  visitation  and  occupancy.  All  this  makes  a  history 
such  as  could  not  be  written  of  any  other  fifty  years  since 
the  world  began. 

The  work  of  preparation  has  been  done,  vast  resources 


RECRUITING    ON   THE  FIELD. 


405 


have  been  gathered,  a  great  host  of  recruits  has  been  en- 
listed from  the  field.  Now  is  the  time  for  one  united, 
tremendus  onset  by  all  the  forces  in  the  field  upon  the 
powers  of  darkness.  There  should  be  a  movement  along 
the  whole  line,  a  sudden,  swift,  resistless  advance  of  the 
hosts  of  the  living  God,  in  one  desperate  assault  upon  the 
strongholds  of  error  and  superstition  in  every  land.  The 
great  heathen  world  must  be  made  to  feel  that  an  extra- 
ordinary and  an  overmastering  impulse  has  been  given  to 
all  the  Christian  forces,  and  that  they  are  determined,  firmly 
and  unitedly,  not  to  make  any  further  delay  in  strengthen- 
ing entrenchments  and  looking  out  for  commanding  situa- 
tions, but  to  move  on  with  one  universal  and  resistless 
charge.  The  impression  is  already  made  upon  the  hea- 
then of  all  countries  that  Christianity  is  a  religion  for  all 
nations  and  that  it  is  destined  to  overspread  and  possess 
the  world.  In  many  cases  they  are  looking  out  for  a  great 
and  strong  advance,  and  they  wonder  why  the  Christian 
forces  so  long  delay  their  conquest.  Let  the  most  intelli- 
gent heathen  see  a  strong,  swift,  united  movement  among 
the  Christian  forces  in  the  field,  let  them  understand  that 
such  a  movement  is  inspired  and  sustained  by  Christians 
of  every  name  throughout  the  world,  and  they  will  at  once 
say  that  the  day  of  confusion  to  their  gods  and  contempt 
for  their  idols  has  come. 

It  will  not  do  to  rest  content  with  reaping  upon  ground 
already  gained,  cultivating  more  thoroughly  fields  already 
won  over  from  the  enemy.  The  bare  presence  of  Chris- 
tian converts  among  the  surrounding  heathen  will  not  con- 
vince the  ignorant  and  the  superstitious  of  the  excellence 


406  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

of  Christianity,  of  the  superiority  of  its  doctrines  and  of 
the  life  to  which  it  leads,  and  thus  cause  them  to  receive 
it  to  their  hearts  and  their  homes.  We  must  never  lose 
sight  of  the  aggressive  character  of  our  missionary  work 
through  a  conservative  and  commendable  desire  to  keep 
well  ground  already  gained. 

We  must  never  forget  that  the  divine  commission  com- 
mands the  conquest  of  the  whole  world,  the  discipling  of  all 
the  nations.  And  sometimes  the  best  way  to  build  up  new 
converts  and  make  them  strong  in  the  faith  is  to  throw  them 
upon  their  own  resources.  All  missionaries  were  onci  driven 
out  of  Madagascar  and  the  untrained  converts  were  left  to 
themselves  for  thirty  years.  They  were  subjected  to  sore 
and  long-continued  persecution,  even  unto  death.  But  when 
the  missionaries  came  back  they  found  the  number  of  Chris- 
tians greater  and  their  faith  stronger  than  when  they  left. 
In  passing  through  the  great  missionary  fields  of  the  East 
the  Christian  traveler  is  often  saddened  to  find  that  the  force 
in  the  field  is  only  sufficient  to  hold  the  ground  already 
gained  and  there  are  none  to  spare  for  advance.  And  one  is 
often  ready  to  raise  the  cry  to  move  on  and  leave  the  new 
converts  to  keep  the  ground  that  has  been  held  for  many  a 
year.  If  the  vanguard  is  always  on  the  march,  the  rear  will 
always  be  on  the  watch.  If  the  cry  comes  down  from  the 
front  that  new  victories  are  gained  at  every  step  of  advance, 
the  main  body  will  gather  resources  and  send  forward  sup- 
plies. Come  out  from  behind  entrenchments  and  take  the 
open  field,  and  the  display  of  confidence  and  courage  will  be 
the  first  step  to  victory. 

There  must  needs  be  homes  and  schools  and  settled  habi- 


RECRUITING   ON   THE  FIELD.  407 

tations  for  many.  Preachers  must  be  trained,  text-books 
must  be  prepared,  hospitals  sustained.  Nevertheless  the  mis- 
sion force  as  a  whole  should  make  the  impression  of  a  con- 
quering army,  ever  on  the  march,  everywhere  present  with 
videttes  and  outposts  always  in  the  face  of  heathenism  and 
ever  advancing  from  victory  to  victory.  Rather  than  settle 
down  to  home  work  and  suffer  themselves  to  be  counted  as 
one  of  many  castes  and  religions,  they  should  make  the  im- 
pression on  the  heathen  that  they  have  come  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  whole  land  and  that  no  nook  or  corner  can  be 
exempt  from  the  invasion  of  the  hosts  of  light.  They  should 
put  their  Christian  faith,  with  all  its  high  and  exclusive  claims, 
in  the  forefront  of  all  their  movements,  medical  and  educa- 
tional, as  well  as  those  which  are  distinctively  evangelical. 
When  they  are  charged  with  making  proselytes  and  subject- 
ing education  to  religion,  they  should  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  that  is  just  what  they  come  for,  and  that  it  is  the  first 
and  the  sole  command  in  their  divine  commission  to  make  all 
nations  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  missionary  force  in  the  field  needs  strengthening  at 
every  point,  but  with  all  its  gathered  recruits  from  among 
the  heathen  it  is  already  strong.  It  need  only  put  on 
strength,  the  strength  of  the  Lord  of  hosts,  and  no  form  of 
heathen  superstition  can  stand  before  it.  Every  missionary 
himself  alone  is  a  host,  because  he  bears  a  divine  commission 
and  the  power  of  the  Almighty  goes  with  him  to  his  work. 
Unflinching  courage  and  unconquerable  energy  are  becoming 
in  him  because  he  is  enlisted  in  a  cause  which  can  never  fail. 
There  should  be  a  common  understanding  among  all  laborers 
in  the  field  that  the  whole  united  host  shall  move  onward 
with  the  most  intense  and  fervid  activity. 


408  MORNING  LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

And  such  will  be  the  result  just  as  soon  as  missionaries 
in  the  field  are  sure  that  the  Church  at  home  has  made  an 
open,  honest,  entire  consecration  of  all  its  resources  to  the 
fulfillment  of  Christ's  command  to  disciple  all  nations.  Let 
missionaries  be  assured  that  any  amount  of  money,  any 
needed  number  of  men  are  ready  to  be  forthcoming  to 
sustain  them  in  their  great  undertaking,  and  then  they  will 
relax  their  cautious  and  conservative  policy,  they  will  come 
out  of  their  entrenchments  and  cover  the  whole  land  with 
the  growing  army  of  native  preachers  and  catechists,  whose 
best  and  most  effective  preaching  is  to  tell  the  simple  story 
of  the  gospel.  Let  missionaries  know  that  we  at  home  are 
one  with  them  in  consecration  to  the  Master's  work,  and 
then  they  will  enter  wider  fields  with  no  fear  that  conquests 
already  made  will  be  lost  when  they  move  onward.  They 
will  give  out  the  watchword  for  an  advance  along  the  whole 
line  and  their  triumphant  march  will  encompass  the  whole 
earth.  When  that  day  comes  one  song  shall  employ  all 
nations,  and  the  redeemed  world,  with  millions  of  tongues 
and  in  all  languages,  shall  proclaim  Christ's  reign  on  earth 
begun. 


XXVIII. 


FAITH    IN    SUCCESS. 


""  I  ^O  give  order  and  completeness  to  our  plans,  energy 
-^  and  perseverance  to  our  efforts,  for  the  conversion  of 
the  world  to  Christ,  we  must  believe  that  the  work  will 
actually  be  accomplished.  We  must  not  only  respect  the 
divine  authority  to  the  command  to  go  and  preach  the 
gospel  to  all  the  nations  :  we  must  rely  upon  the  divine 
promise  that  the  Word  shall  accomplish  the  end  for  which 
it  is  sent  forth,  the  nations  will  heed  the  preaching  and  be 
saved.  All  Christians  should  be  sustained  by  full,  firm, 
high  expectation  that  the  kingdom  of  Christ  is  to  embrace 
the  whole  world.  All  powers,  arts,  possessions,  talents, 
inventions,  are  to  be  consecrated  to  him,  and  they  are  all 
to  be  used,  happily  and  effectively,  in  promoting  the  reign  of 
righteousness  and  peace.  Even  the  implements  and  engines 
of  war,  which  ingenious  men  are  constantly  carrying  forward 
towards  a  state  of  complete  and  terrible  perfection,  shall 
in  the  end  defeat  the  very  purpose  for  which  they  are  de- 
vised. When  they  have  been  carried  so  far  that  two  armies 
cannot  meet  in  conflict  without  inflicting  immediate  and 
utter  destruction  upon  each  other,  war  will  become  impossi- 
ble.  Nation  will  no  longer  rise  against  nation,  when  the 
weakest  and  the  strongest  are  equalized  in  the  field  by  the 
possession  of  the  means  of  annihilating  each  other  in  a 
moment.      In  that  day  the  great  heroisms  of  the  world  will 


4IO  MORNING  LIGHT  IX  MANY  LANDS. 

find  a  more  useful  and  exalted  employment  than  the 
slaughter  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men.  The  productive 
arts  and  the  high-wrought  sciences,  which  increase  man's 
control  over  the  power  and  resources  of  nature,  will  all 
contribute  to  the  common  good  and  swell  the  abundance  of 
peace.  The  whole  round  earth,  with  all  its  productions, 
•will  become  a  garden  of  God  for  the  support  of  the  whole 
human  family  and  for  the  multiplication  of  riches  and  beauty 
and  blessing  in  every  human  home.  The  wastes  and  the 
desolations  of  many  generations  will  give  place  to  culture 
everywhere,  and  the  earth,  no  longer  impoverished  by  igno- 
rance and  neglect,  will  yield  her  increase  in  such  abundance 
as  never  before. 

All  Christians  must  look  forward  with  confident  expecta- 
tion to  the  coming  of  such  a  day,  in  order  to  labor  and  give 
and  pray  with  becoming  earnestness  for  the  propagation  of 
the  gospel  among  all  nations.  We  must  believe  that  the 
truth  which  we  carry  to  the  utmost  nations  is  the  chosen 
instrumentality  of  the  almighty  God  for  the  accomplishment 
of  all  that  he  desires  to  have  done  in  filling  the  world  with 
the  abundance  of  blessing  and  peace.  We  must  allow  no 
doubts  of  the  skeptic,  no  theories  of  the  philosopher,  no 
failures  or  hindrances  in  Christian  work,  to  shake  our  faith 
in  the  one  supreme  fact  of  the  future,  that  the  knowledge 
of  the  Lord  is  to  fill  the  earth  and  all  nations  are  to 
become  righteous.  We  are  not  apt  to  work  on  with  energy 
in  the  face  of  difficulties  and  delays  unless  we  are  animated 
by  the  unfailing  hope  of  success  in  the  end.  We  shall  put 
very  little  faith  into  the  prayer,  Thy  kingdom  come,  unless 
we  believe  that  the  kingdom  is  really  coming  and  that  the 


FAITH  IN  SUCCESS.  4  I  I 

will  of  our  Father  is  to  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done  by  the 
holy  and  the  blessed  in  heaven. 

The  command  of  Christ  is  indeed  a  sufficient  reason  for 
engaging  in  any  work,  even  the  hardest  and  the  longest. 
But  he  commands  the  preaching  of  his  gospel  unto  all  the 
nations  because  the  nations  are  in  desperate  need  of  the 
message.  He  came  himself  to  our  world  upon  his  missi(;r 
of  mercy  because  men  were  lost  and  they  needed  nothing 
so  much  as  a  Saviour.  He  commands  us  to  go  to  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  on  the  same  errand  and  for 
the  same  reason.  The  greatest  and  the  most  awful  argu- 
ment for  pressing  foreign  missions  with  all  possible  urgency 
is  the  fact  that  the  heathen  are  in  that  condifion  which 
Christ  describes  by  the  one  word,  lost.  He  commands  us 
to  make  disciples,  educated,  consecrated  Christians  of  the 
lowest  and  basest  of  mankind,  because  the  thing  needs  to 
be  done  and  it  can  be  done  and  it  will  be  done.  We  all 
have  the  opportunity  to  bear  an  honorable  and  efficient 
part  in  the  great  work.  But  if  we  decline  the  privilege, 
if  we  shun  the  duty,  it  will  be  accepted  by  others  and 
we  shall  lose  the  greatest  opportunity  ever  given  to  man. 
The  Master  would  not  have  us  waste  our  time,  our  efforts, 
our  resources  upon  impracticable .  schemes  for  the  attain- 
ment of  results  which  he  knows  will  never  come  to  pash. 
He  takes  no  pleasure  in  visionary  schemes  or  useless 
enterprises.  We  are  to  preach  his  gospel  to  all  the 
nations  because  the  nations  can  be  saved  and  he  means 
that  they  shall  be  saved. 

We  are  to  labor  and  pray  and  give,  not  simply  in  the 
hope  of  gathering  out  from  among  the  heathen  nations  here 


412  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

and  there  one,  and  leave  the  rest  to  perish  under  greater 
condemnation,  because  they  heard  the  gospel  and  they 
rejected  its  testimony  to  the  love  of  God  in  giving  his  Son 
for  their  salvation.  Christ  came  into  the  world,  not  to 
condemn  any,  but  that  all  through  faith  in  him  might  be 
saved.  He  commands  us  to  put  his  word  into  all  the 
languages  of  men  and  carry  it  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth 
that  all  men  may  see  its  light  and  rejoice  in  the  brightness 
of  its  coming.  It  is  not  to  select  a  special  few  and  make 
disciples  of  them  to  the  abandonment  of  the  millions  of 
the  great  heathen  world  that  missionaries  go  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  in  obedience  to  the  command  of  Christ.  They 
go  to  make  converts,  and  they  judge  the  fitness  and  effi- 
ciency of  their  labor  by  the  number  of  conversions  gained. 
They  keep  uppermost  in  mind  the  command  of  the  Master, 
not  simply  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth  and  then  pass  on, 
but  to  make  disciples,  train  up  a  new  generation  of  enlight- 
ened and  sanctified  men,  to  build  the  old  wastes,  to  repair 
the  desolations  of  many  generations. 

All  the  arts,  riches,  inventions,  which  have  so  greatly 
multiplied  under  the  inspiring  and  uplifting  influence  of 
Christianity  wherever  it  has  been  received,  shall  become 
the  possession  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  shall  go  on 
increasing  a  hundredfold  in  the  future.  They  shall  enlarge 
the  resources  and  beautify  the  habitations  of  God's  children 
in  the  glorious  coming  age,  when  all  the  heathen  and  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  shall  be  given  unto  Christ  for 
a  possession.  All  Christians  should  speak  and  pray  and 
give  with  the  expectation  that  God's  own  promise  will  be 
fulfilled  and  that  the  darkness  of  heathenism  will  give  place 
to  the  gospel  light  all  (jver  the  earth. 


FAITH  IN  SUCCESS.  413 

Men  like  to  attach  themselves  to  enterprises  which  are  sure 
to  succeed.  When  they  are  called  upon  to  risk  money  and 
time  and  labor  and  reputation  upon  any  great  undertak- 
ing, they  have  a  right  to  ask  what  is  the  prospect  that  it  will 
be  carried  through,  and  how  far  it  will  command  the  help  of 
the  mighty  and  the  wealth  of  the  rich  and  the  praise  of  the 
eloquent  and  the  approbation  of  the  wise  and  the  sympathy 
of  the  good.  If  they  are  sure  of  all  that  in  the  end,  they 
can  afford  to  wait  for  the  vindication  of  their  character  and 
a  return  for  their  investment  for  many  years.  The  financier 
who  has  succeeded  in  some  one  great  undertaking,  involving 
the  expenditure  of  millions,  finds  it  easy  to  enlist  the  sub- 
scriptions of  the  poor  and  the  rich  alike  in  another  scheme 
of  greater  magnitude  and  more  uncertainty. 

But  the  one  greatest  and  mightiest  work  ever  undertaken 
in  all  time  is  the  one  which  is  most  certain  to  succeed.  It  is 
sustained  by  infinite  riches  and  power,  it  is  guided  by  infinite 
wisdom,  it  is  prompted  by  infinite  love,  and  it  can  no  more 
fail  of  its  full  accomplishment  than  the  sun  can  forget  to  rise 
or  the  ordinances  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth  can  be 
changed.  God  himself  has  given  his  word  of  immutable 
promise  that  his  message  of  salvation  shall  accomplish  the 
end  whereunto  it  is  sent  forth  into  all  the  earth,  and  all  the 
nations  shall  turn  unto  the  Lord. 

When  we  urge  men  to  give  their  time  and  money  and 
labor  for  that  one  greatest  enterprise  of  all  the  ages,  we 
must  do  our  best  to  fill  them  with  the  assurance  of  complete 
and  glorious  success.  There  may  be  wars  and  commotions 
among  the  nations  ;  there  may  be  conflicts  of  opinion  and 
trials  of  faith  ;    there    may  be  changes  in    the    customs    of 


414 


MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 


society  and  diversities  in  the  modes  of  presenting  the  truth 
itself ;  there  may  be  different  branches  of  the  one  household 
of  faith  in  Christ,  and  all  members  of  the  same  branch  may 
not  have  the  same  precise  form  of  sound  words  in  which 
to  express  their  deepest  convictions,  —  still  God's  word  of 
promise  shall  stand,  and  all  diversities  of  opinion  and  of 
practice  shall  blend  in  devotion  to  the  same  Lord  and  to  the 
coming  of  the  same  reign  of  righteousness  and  peace  among 
all  nations. 

In  all  our  appeals  to  the  people  in  the  home  land  to  be 
earnest  and  liberal  in  support  of  foreign  missions,  this  one 
great  fact  of  the  future  should  ever  be  kept  prominent  and 
clear.  The  work  is  to  be  done,  the  heathen  are  to  be  con- 
verted, the  religion  of  Christ  is  to  pervade  the  whole  earth, 
the  knowledge,  the  culture,  the  riches,  the  prosperity,  the 
peace  which  Christianity  brings,  are  to  become  the  inherit- 
ance of  all  nations.  The  education  and  the  science,  the 
arts  and  the  inventions,  the  machines  and  the  engines,  the 
conquest  of  difficulties  and  the  command  of  the  forces  of 
nature,  which  have  thus  far  been  attained  by  the  most  Chris- 
tian nations,  are  but  the  beginnings  of  the  riches  and  power 
and  improvement  which  the  gospel  will  carry  with  its  pro- 
gress among  the  most  degraded  races  of  men.  For  that 
great  and  mighty  revolution  in  human  society  we  ask  rich 
men  to  give  and  strong  men  to  work  and  learned  and  elo- 
quent men  to  speak  and  write,  and  all  men  to  pray,  when  we 
plead  the  cause  of  foreign  missions,  when  we  beseech  and 
implore  Christians  in  America  to  give  their  best  strength 
and  effort  and  faith  to  the  fulfillment  of  Christ's  command 
to  disciple  all  the  nations.      The  divine  commission  is   not   to- 


FAITH  IN  SUCCESS.  415 

speak  words  of  truth  which  are  only  imperfectly  under- 
stood and  then  pass  on  to  other  tribes  and  peoples.  The 
messengers  are  to  follow  up  the  witness  with  labor  and 
teaching  and  personal  contact  with  heathen  races  until 
they  learn  the  way  of  life  and  become  actual  disciples  of 
Christ.  When  that  is  done  all  over  the  earth,  the  com- 
mission will  be  fulfilled,  and  all  will  say,  not  that  the 
coming  of  Christ  is  near  at  hand,  but  that  he  has 
already  come  and  filled  the  earth  with  his  glory. 

We  must  believe  in  the  success,  in  the  final  triumph  of 
the  missionary  enterprise,  as  surely  as  we  believe  in  the 
power  and  the  promise  of  almighty  God,  as  surely  as  we 
believe  in  the  constancy  of  God's  covenant  of  the  day  and 
of  the  night.  He  has  given  his  greatest  and  best  gift  for 
the  accomplishment  of  the  work  which  he  commands  his 
people  to  take  up  and  carry  on  to  the.  end.  His  love 
to  the  world,  —  the  whole  world, — his  desire  for  the  sal- 
vation of  all  men,  are  so  great  that  he  has  given  and  done 
his  best  for  the  attainment  of  the  one  great  end  which  he 
has  most  at  heart  with  respect  to  men.  Let  the  Christians 
of  America  be  assured  that  this  work  of  converting  the 
nations  is  certain  to  be  done,  whether  they  do  or  give  any- 
thing or  not.  But  the  privilege  of  bearing  an  honorable 
part  in  the  greatest  work  of  all  the  ages  is  offered  them. 
The  one  cause  which  is  certain  to  triumph,  and  which  by 
its  means  will  fill  the  earth  with  peace  and  gladness,  is  the 
cause  which  comes  before  the  churches  in  every  appeal  for 
foreign  missions. 

Any  man  who  lives  in  this  land,  calling  himself  a  Chris- 
tian and  yet   not  interested  in  this  greatest  commission  of 


41 6  MORNING   LIGHT  IN  MANY  LANDS. 

the  divine  Master,  needs  to  be  taught  anew  what  are  the 
first  elements  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ.  The  only  light 
which  shines  upon  the  pathway  of  the  future  for  the  nations, 
the  only  hope  we  have  that  they  will  ever  learn  war  no  more 
and  that  the  wastes  of  wickedness  will  give  place  to  abun- 
dance and  peace,  comes  from  the  assurance  that  the  truths 
of  the  gospel  shall  find  utterance  in  all  languages  and  shall 
be  received  with  faith  and  obedience  in  all  hearts.  The 
great  and  divine  work  of  converting  the  nations  shall  go  on 
until  it  shall  be  seen  before  earth  and  heaven  that  the 
almighty  Giver  is  justified  for  the  vast  expenditure  of 
means  and  mercies  which  he  has  made  to  bring  this  world 
back  to  him.  Bearing  a  part  in  this  work  ourselves,  let  us 
always  speak  and  give  and  labor  and  pray  with  the  tone 
and  spirit  of  men  who  are  engaged  in  no  uncertain  or  doubt- 
ful enterprise.  Let  the  Church,  the  whole  united  body  of 
believers  in  all  the  world,  silence  all  objections,  answer  all 
skepticisms,  overcome  all  obstacles,  by  the  constancy,  the 
calm  assurance  of  their  faith  in  the  success  of  their  com- 
mission and  the  full  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  all 
the  earth. 


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